Systems Foundations
This term describes a family’s natural drive to maintain balance, even when patterns are unhealthy.
What is homeostasis?
The ability to balance individuality with emotional connection to reduce anxiety.
What is differentiation of self?
The framework that defines hierarchy and relationships in a family.
What is family structure?
This approach focuses on changing interaction patterns through tasks or directives.
What is strategic therapy?
The process of separating the person from the problem.
What is externalization?
This term means a smaller group within the family, such as parents or siblings, that has its own roles.
What is a subsystem?
When a person cuts off contact to manage unresolved emotional issues.
What is emotional cutoff?
Emotional or physical limits that determine closeness or distance.
What are boundaries?
When a therapist intentionally prescribes a problematic behavior.
What is a paradoxical intervention?
The question that asks clients to imagine life if the problem disappeared overnight.
What is the miracle question?
This principle states that change in one part of the family affects the entire system.
What is systemic interdependence?
A pattern where unresolved anxiety is passed through generations.
What is the multigenerational transmission process?
The process of strengthening boundaries between family subsystems.
What is boundary making?
The Milan team used this to explore family belief systems.
What is circular questioning?
Times when the problem is less present or absent.
What are exceptions?
This occurs when two people in conflict draw in a third to ease tension.
What is triangulation?
The primary focus of Bowenian therapy.
What is reducing chronic anxiety in the family system?
An intervention where the therapist has family members act out a pattern.
What is enactment?
Reinterpreting a problem so it appears in a new, more useful way.
What is reframing?
Helping clients write new, empowering stories about their lives.
What is re-authoring?
The process of understanding family dynamics as circular rather than linear.
What is circular causality?
A technique for mapping emotional and relational patterns across generations.
What is a genogram?
The goal of structural therapy.
What is to reorganize family hierarchy for healthier interaction?
The idea that real change occurs when the system itself transforms, not just behavior.
What is second-order change?
Exploring moments that contradict the problem-saturated story.
What are unique outcomes?