Family Systems: Morphostasis and Morphogenesis,or “Is Homeostasis Enough?”

The role of family homeostasis in Conjoint Family Therapy is reviewed and examined from the standpoint of the Sociocultural Systems framework as presented by Buckley. Sociocultural Systems concepts are presented, and an attempt is made to relate them to a view of the family. It is concluded that the concept of homeostasis by itself is insufficient as a basic explanatory principle for family systems and that it may limit both our expectations for families and our approaches to helping families. The concepts viability, positive feedback processes, morphogenesis, and "variety" are presented and emphasized as important for a more tenable conceptualization of the family system in our society today. An attempt is made to relate these concepts to some of the clinical family literature and to examine the implications of these concepts for mental health and educational approaches to the family.     

The Darlington Family Assessment Sytem: clinical guidelines for practitioners

The Darlington Family Assessment System (DFAS) consists of a framework of widely accepted concepts, a semi-structured family interview and rating scale, and a detailed account of how to use the system in clinical practice. The model views health issues within a family life-cycle (developmental) framework. It assesses problems at four systemic levels: the child perspective, the parental perspective, the parent-child perspective, and the whole family perspective. The semi-structured interview is designed to see how family members perceive problems and to map out other possible problems, and is a useful basic training tool. Empirical work suggests that the framework of key concepts and the rating scale offer a powerful method for describing and differentiating families. There is evidence that the model is useful as a training method for health professionals undergoing basic training. Detailed clinical guidelines have also been developed, to show how the model can be applied in practice. The advantage of the model is that it can be used with a variety of therapeutic approaches, and to inform choices about which interventions are likely to be successful or not.     

The Salvational Process in Relationships: A View from Projective–Introjective Identification and Repetition Compulsion

On the basis of mechanisms such as projective–introjective identification, basic affect, affect regulation, and repetition compulsion, we shall try to explain the essence of intrapsychic, interpersonal, and relational family dynamics. We will also try to explain how relational connections mutually intertwine in the family system, what sustains them, and why they are created and recreated again and again. It is in this regard that we will also be able to consider the essential salvational process, which occurs precisely on the basis of these mechanisms, that is, those that represent fundamental purification and salvation. Some basic biblical theological concepts are applied. These provide the basis for integrating the psychological and theological domains of family systems.     

Coping in Families with a Retarded Child

The impact of a retarded child on a family has previously been described by individual family members' reports. This study of 40 families, 10 in each of four critical periods during the life of the retarded child, utilized videotaped interviews with whole families, with subsequent clinical observation and analysis based on the Beavers family assessment model. Healthy and problematic adaptations are delineated, with specific attention to systems concepts such as family structure and power, member individuation, feeling expression, and values. The report includes data analysis and a summary of pattern differences in family functioning.     

Entwicklungsbezogene Pr?vention von Gewalt und Kriminalit?t

This article provides an overview of concepts and empirical evaluations of developmental prevention of delinquency, violence and other forms of antisocial behavior in childhood and youth. At first basic terms and arguments are discussed; then a selection of family, child school and community-oriented programs are briefly presented. There follows an integrative evaluation of the field that is mainly based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses. An integrative model shows that preventive effects depend on many characteristics of the programs, contexts, participants and evaluation methods. In total effect sizes are positive and small but show practical relevance. There is a strong need for more well controlled outcome evaluations with long-term follow-up and more process evaluations of implementation and quality assurance. Future research and practice should be integrated within a long-term and cross-departmental prevention policy.     

Communication and Understanding in Parent–Adolescent Relationships

This research examined communication and parent–adolescent understanding, including understanding about family conflicts, adolescent self‐concepts, and immediate thoughts (or “empathic accuracy”). Fifty parent–adolescent triads completed questionnaires, held a discussion, and reported on immediate thoughts during the discussion using video‐assisted recall methods. Alternative measures of understanding produced distinct results. Parental understanding of the child's self‐concept was associated with frequent and open communication, high parent–child relationship satisfaction, and a strong child self‐concept. Parental understanding of conflict perceptions was associated with high conformity and low relationship satisfaction. Parental understanding of the immediate thoughts of children was quite low overall and was not consistently related to communication, relationship satisfaction, or child self‐concept. The results suggest that alternative measures of understanding reflect different family processes.     

Family therapists and family business: A view of the future

The family business is a unique entity that has recently come to the attention of business consultants and family therapists. The unique processes of family business are amendable to the applications of family systems theory, organizational development theory, and various theories that focus on individual growth and development. In this paper we review some of the basic concepts relative to understanding family businesses and briefly outline our approach to consultation with family businesses.     

Involving the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child patient: A psychodynamic approach

The purpose of this article is to provide psychotherapists with a tool for family evaluation using the basic principles of psychodynamic work; and to introduce a transitional format for therapists who have practiced family evaluations in their training institutions and now need to adapt this model to the private practitioner's office. A case example illustrates: (1) Use of the therapist's unconscious for diagnosis of the child and its family, (2) joining the family's intersubjective space, and (3) use of play and therapist's neutrality as ways that the psychodynamically oriented clinician involves the family in the evaluation and treatment of the child.     

A Short-Term,Family-Oriented,Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatient Treatment Program

We describe a short-term inpatient treatment program whose purpose is to integrate the different interventions in the child, his or her family, and the outpatient professional network. The interaction between the family and the ward is the basic structural element of child psychiatric inpatient treatment. The child, the family, the professional outpatient network, and the ward community together form an extended therapeutic system. Inpatient treatment can be understood as a coevolving process between these systems. The essential feature in our working model is the continuous, daily nursing staff supervision and a focus on interactions in the extended therapeutic system.     

A Developmental Model for Family Systems

This paper reviews the historical context of concepts of development and some of the problems of applying them to family systems. A model of family systems development is presented that emphasizes changes in family shape through the individual life cycle. Some clinical uses of the model are described.     

Protection, Paradox, and Pretending

This paper proposes that psychopathology in children can be the result of an incongruity in the hierarchical organization of the family. The parents are in a superior position to the child by the fact of being parents, and yet the problem child assumes a superior position to the parents by protecting them through symptomatic behavior that often expresses metaphorically the parents' difficulties. The paper describes three paradoxical strategies for arranging that the parents solve the presenting problem of the child and the incongruity in the family hierarchy. The therapeutic techniques described are characterized by the use of communication modalities, such as dramatizations, pretending, and make-believe, that are appropriate to children.     

Sailing between Scylla and Charybdis1: Incorporating qualitative approaches into child psychotherapy research

Starting from the acknowledged gap between research and practice in child psychotherapy, this paper offers an historical perspective on the relation between these two activities, and suggests that qualitative approaches to research may offer new ways of bringing them together. After introducing the fundamental concepts of qualitative analysis, three areas where qualitative forms of research may be useful to child psychotherapists are explored: relevant but non-psychotherapy research; accounts of therapy research; and therapy process research. Examples of all of these types of research are presented, and some of the challenges to incorporating qualitative approaches into child psychotherapy research are discussed.     

Dialectical Metatheory in Family Therapy

This paper addresses the controversy in family therapy over basic philosophical issues in terms of a historical opposition between demonstrative and dialectical metatheories. It argues that advances in family therapy are indicative of the growing prominence of dialectical forms of understanding in the social sciences. Several family therapy concepts are explored as representative of the dialectical categories of motion, form, relationship, and transformation.     

A combined therapeutic approach in a family setting

Combined treatment approaches, co-therapy and family work are three concepts which are under much discussion in psychiatry. This paper describes the systematic use of an integrated treatment approach used by co-therapists working with families in which a child was the referred patient. The rationale behind this approach together with its advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The authors conclude that the approach is sufficiently promising to merit formal evaluation.     

Research on Family Interaction I: Static and Dynamic Models

A static and dynamic model of family structure are presented and illustrated in clinical application to a pilot study. The basic measure is a content-free assessment of the sequence of states of interaction in family sessions. Using Markov process concepts, certain parallels between the behavioral variables (state transitions) and the more abstract clinical concepts of family structure can be identified. By subsuming the latter structural concepts under a framework of "balance theory" (Heider; Cartwright and Harary) considerable reduction in complexity is achieved without sacrificing clinical relevance.
Still to be explored are the applications to the study of therapist-family interaction and of treatment-related changes in structural and behavioral measures.     

Up front and personal: confronting dynamics in the Family Group Conference

The Family Group Conference is a participatory model of decision making with families in child protection. It is a legal process that brings together the family, including the extended family, and the professionals in a family-led decision-making forum. Bringing together extended family and professionals to discuss child protection concerns can create a highly charged dynamic. Workers are challenged by family, family are challenged by workers, and family members challenge each other. Practice is also exposed to wider scrutiny as professionals also challenge the work. This article briefly describes the development and practice of family group conferencing as a family-centred legal process in Aotearoa, New Zealand. It then examines the findings of a study exploring the dynamics emerging from family group conference practice from the perspective of the coordinators who convene them. Family group conferencing as a family strengthening practice is discussed.     

Violence in the family—an attempt to apply contemporary theories of non-violent action and conflict resolution skills

Recognizing the influence of ideologies on approaches to violence in the family, the author has sought to set this violence in the context of a violent society. In this same society, however, there has also evolved in recent years a range of concepts related to non-violent problem-solving. Examining some of these concepts the author considers the possibility of applying them to family situations as a way of developing skills useful to the family but also relevant in other life conflicts.     

A group analytic contribution to family therapy

This paper represents an attempt to add to the conceptual and technical repertoire of family therapy by drawing on experiences derived from group analytic practice. Despite many theoretical points of intersection, there are significant differences in technique dictated by an evolving experience with two fundamentally different types of group. This paper sets out the core concepts of group analysis, compares them with related concepts in family therapy and aims to achieve a synthesis of group analytic family therapy, which, though sharing matters of language and theory with many schools of family therapy, provides in its total conception a unique perspective on family therapy.