MICRO THEORIES & THE CLINICAL LENS
This defense mechanism involves attributing one’s own unwanted feelings to someone else.
What is projection?
In structural family therapy, this term refers to the invisible rules that determine who interacts with whom, and how often.
What are boundaries?
The term for the body’s “wear and tear” from repeated activation of the stress response.
What is allostatic load?
This sociological theory argues that social problems arise from inequalities in power, resources, and access.
Patrisse’s early exposure to police raids and community violence represent this type of trauma.
What is Chronic or complex trauma?
This ego function allows a person to delay immediate impulses in order to act in a socially appropriate way.
What is impulse control?
This occurs when a parent brings a child into adult conflict to reduce their own anxiety.
What is triangulation?
This is the brain structure most associated with detecting threat and activating fear responses.
What is the amygdala?
This model views individuals as embedded within interacting systems such as family, school, neighborhood, and culture.
What is ecological systems theory (Brofenbrenner)?
Her tendency to fiercely protect Monte and step into parental roles reflects this family systems concept.
What is parentification?
According to attachment theory, this style develops when caregivers are rejecting or emotionally unavailable, leading individuals to suppress emotional needs.
What is avoidant attachment?
Walsh identifies this resilience process in which families make meaning of adversity and maintain hope.
What is meaning-making (Walsh)?
Van der Kolk describes this trauma symptom pattern in which people alternate between hyperarousal and emotional numbing.
What is the trauma pendulum or cycling between hyperactivation and hypoactivation?
Critical Race Theory posits that racism is not an aberration, but rather this.
What is a normal, embedded feature of society?
Patrisse’s distrust of institutions after repeated racialized violence illustrates impairment in this ego function.
What is reality testing?
In CBT, this type of thinking error involves seeing situations as “all good” or “all bad,” with no middle ground.
What is black and white thinking?
This family pattern occurs when leadership in the household becomes unclear and children assume responsibilities typically held by adults.
What is role reversal or parentification?
A child growing up with chronic community violence and racialized policing exposure is experiencing this kind of trauma.
What is racial trauma or community based traumatic stress?
This macro theory argues that institutions serve a stabilizing role and exist to maintain social order.
What is functionalism?
Her increased sense of strength and identity through activism is an example of movement into this Eriksonian stage.
What is generativity vs stagnation?
This psychodynamic concept describes the process by which unresolved childhood conflicts are revived within the therapeutic relationship
What is transference?
Groups with diffuse boundaries often struggle with this concept, which describes the ability to hold both closeness and separateness in healthy ways.
What is differentiation?
This concept describes how trauma exposure in one generation influences the biological stress response in the next.
What is intergenerational trauma (or epigenetic transmission of trauma)?
This term describes the repeated exposure to discrimination that creates chronic psychological and biological strain for marginalized groups.
What is weathering (or cumulative racialized stress)?
BLM served as a healing space for Patrisse, demonstrating this group process where members contribute mutual support, identity, and meaning-making.
What is group cohesion or mutual aid?