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This refers to how in determining the origins of problems, general system theory departs radically from tradition by acknowledging that what things do, say, or feel mutually influence on another in a recursive, circular relationship.
What is circular causality?
This is the idea that an organism or system can reach a certain end state from a variety of different sources, conditions, and means or from different initial states. For example, Generalized Anxiety Disorder may stem from a biological imbalance, trauma, or existential givens.
What is equifinality?
This is a communication that leaves the responder “damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
What is a double bind?
These are theoretical lines of demarcation in a family that define a system as an entity and separate the subsystems from one another and the system from its environment.
What are boundaries?
These are at the core of the cybernetics model. They are the self-correcting mechanisms which serve to govern families’ attempts to adjust or vary from customary patterns and maintain its organizational sameness (homeostasis).
What are feedback loops?
This refers to efforts by a system to self-correct deviations from homeostatic norms and conserve balance.
What are negative feedback loops?
These refer to efforts by the system to adapt toward change based upon new information.
What are positive feedback loops?
Instead of within person dynamics, systems theory focuses on this.
What are dynamics/interactions occurring between people?
This refers to dynamic aspects that are changing within the system. Often, family therapists make the distinction between this (how something is said) and content (what is being said).
What is process?
This describes a system’s tendency toward growth, creativity, change and innovation.
What is morphogenesis?
Every day after Michael returns home from school, he goes to greet his mother with a hug, but when he actually hugs her, she tenses up and subtly pushes him away from her. When Michael then withdraws from the hug, his mother responds by stating, "You must not have missed your mother very much to give her such. rejecting hug." Michael reacts with a sad face which his mother further responded to by stating, "Now Michael, you must not be so emotional and easily offended...I expect an actual hug when you return home from school tomorrow." Michael is caught in this because not showing physical affection toward Mom is actually punished. Mom stating that Michael is expected to continue and correct this pattern the next day creates no escape from the interaction, and his dependence on his parents creates no escape from the environment. The above is an example of this.
What is a double bind?
General system theory brought a framework to understanding the system as a whole--a way to organize the functioning of family and social systems from 10,000 feet above. On the other hand, this, a close associate of general system theory, allows us to zoom in and examine the precise ways in which particular systems maintain preservation through communication processes and behavioral organization patterns within the system and between the system and external environment.
What is cybernetics?
Dad stays home and does chores. Then dad gets a job. Then the family complains and leaves him chores to do after work. In response dad quits his job. Now dad stays home and does chores. This sequence of events is an example of this.
What is a negative feedback loop?
This is a unit bounded by a set of interrelated elements and which exhibits coherent behaviors.
What is a system?
This refers to the tendency of a system to resist change and maintain dynamic equilibrium or a steady state. This is maintained by negative feedback and input loops.
What is homeostasis? Also will accept morphostasis, but remember homeostasis...it's the one in the study book.
This is the name of the person who developed General Systems Theory.
Who is Ludwig von Bertalanffy?
This is the name of an American mathematician and philosopher who developed the framework of Cybernetics.
Who is Norbert Weiner?
Dad stays home and does chores (status quo). Then dad gets a job. In response the family is supportive and distributes the chores dad did amongst each member. Also the family adjusts its routines to accommodate changes in dad's schedule. This sequence of events is an example of this.
What is a positive feedback loop?
This refers to the notion that different end states can occur from the same initial conditions. Similar events (e.g., natural disaster) can prime depression or trauma as well as growth or happiness.
What is equipotentiality?
These are systems that interact regularly with the environment with relatively no inhibition.
What are open systems?
These are two of the six basic assumptions of systems theory.
What are the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, individual and family behavior must be understood in context, the family is a goal-seeking system, a family is a self-reflexive and self-regulating system continually influenced by feedback, family systems are defined by their communication, and the locus of pathology is not within the person but is a system dysfunction?
These are regions between each subsystem of the family and between the family and the suprasystem.
What is boundary interface?
This is a volatile and intense way of disguising and distorting both affection and splits.
What is pseudohostility?
From Lyman Wynne, this describes a systemic pretense of harmony and closeness that hides conflict and interferes with intimacy.
What is pseudomutuality?
This refers to reciprocal or circular causality. Rather than viewing an element in a vacuum devoid of interactions between its environment and its own system’s levels or subsystems, this speaks to the mutual interaction and influence that occurs between people, events, and their ecosystem.
What is recursiveness?