The Relational Systems Model for Family Therapy

Living in the Four Realities

Carlton Munson, D Ray Bardill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780789000743
• eBook ISBN: 9781317791386
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Relational Systems Model for Family Therapy presents a multi-systems approach to family therapy that teaches the therapist important self-differentiating capacities that set the tone for creating a powerful therapeutic atmosphere. While the model demands no specific treatment procedures, it does rely on the therapist's capacity to adhere to its basic ideas, as she/he is the most vital factor in the model's success.In The Relational Systems Model for Family Therapy, Author Donald R. Bardill encourages the therapist to be the learning vehicle for the integration of the four realities of life (self, other, context, spiritual) and the differentiating process that is necessary for human survival, safety, and growth. Understanding this model allows therapists to lead clients to heightened self-awareness and the realization of their human potential--both important factors for intellectual growth, emotional maturity, and problem solving. To this end, readers learn about:

• the self-differentiating therapist--the person-of-the-therapist is the crucial variable in an effective family treatment process
• the facing process--the client faces such issues as self-identity, life-purpose, thought and behavior patterns, emotionalized fears, and the future
• emotionalized right/wrong--focus is on consequences of actions rather than right/wrong judgments in relationship issues
• life stances--the uniqueness of the individual affects their connection to the life realities
• family grid--a way for the therapist to organize and talk about important family systems dynamics
• the therapeutic paradox--the client's worldview is examined through the therapist's worldview and a new worldview is formedThe Relational Systems Model for Family Therapy is an important handbook for practitioners and students in the fields of clinical social work, psychology, marriage and family therapy, mental health counseling, counseling psychology, pastoral counseling, and psychiatric nursing. The book is also useful as a supplemental text for advanced undergraduate classes and postgraduate seminars in family therapy and family counseling. The self-differentiation nature of the content also lends this book useful to self-help readers.

CHAPTER 1

THE RELATIONAL SYSTEMS MODEL

A Concept of Human Relationships

Locations, Labels, and Human Relationships

Relational Truth

Past and Present Choices

Relational Choice

Separateness, Connectedness, and Differentiation

A Concept of Human Systems

Vertical and Horizontal Systems

Emotional Systems

Linear and Circular Dynamics

Multisystems

A Concept of Models

Relational View

To Emulate

Universal and Specific in Nature

Differentiation

Summary

As we penetrate into matter, nature does not allow us to isolate building blocks, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of a unified whole.

H.P. Stapp¹

A CONCEPT OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS

Out of changes in the basic theories in modem physics and biology have come new ways of examining human relationships. We now know reality has a basic relationship dimension as well as a basic matter dimension. Human beings in every known culture exhibit a need to relate to other human beings. Human relationships may be thought of as that without which you cannot experience your existence. As humans, we live in a complex web of relationships with ourself, others, our natural and social context, and the spiritual dimension of life.

Locations, Labels, and Human Relationships

Take a moment to imagine a little girl holding a large, beautiful, smooth rubber ball with an X on it. Now, imagine that the little girl starts to toss the ball into the air, catches it, and tosses it back into the air repeatedly. As you observe, in your imagination, the little girl tossing the ball you are asked, Where is the X on the rubber ball?

If you are like most people, you will have difficulty coming up with the words to pinpoint the location of the X on the ever-turning, moving rubber ball.

Now, imagine that I take the ball and put an O opposite the X and give it back to the little girl who once more starts rapidly tossing the ball into the air. If I ask you, where is the X on the ball, what would you say? My experience has been that almost everyone will say that the X is opposite the O.

One characteristic of human beings is that we locate things in relation to other things. We locate ourselves in relation to other people, other systems, other ideas, other places, etc. The locations we use include such notions as labels, categories, roles, and time and distances. Locations give us a frame of reference for making connections to people, events, and places.

Roles, times, and labels provide a position from which to relate within a complex world. Locations are vital to the process of human relationships. Relationships are complicated, and we need a perspective from which to approach them.

There are down-sides to the need to relate from distinguishable locations. For instance, in the use of roles there is a tendency to not see the person who is in a particular role. Often we just do not see the human being who occupies a role or position. We relate more to the role than to the person in the role. All of us are much more than the roles we occupy. For instance, a person may change over time while occupying the same role. I am not the same person in my father role today that I was twenty years ago. On the other hand, roles also change for the same people within families. The child becomes an adult; parents who took care of us when we were children grow old and need to be cared for by their “children.” The care receiver becomes the caregiver.

Locations give each of us a unique view of the world. In our relational existence, each one of us occupies a unique position, complete with our own views about the human condition. We come to our own perspective from our individual capacities, personal experiences, and our unique interpretations of human events. By implication, we are who and what we are in relation to other people.

Relational Truth

Often, I begin a workshop or graduate course in family work with the following announcement, “Let me share something very important about this course. When I talk about family activities and family therapy, I do not tell the truth.” After a short pause, I repeat the statement in a very forceful manner. After another pause I ask, “Why is that so?” Most of the time no one says anything for a minute or so. At some point, someone will venture a comment about words reflecting a particular point of view. The discussion that follows ordinarily is lively and informative for everyone. We learn that we are limited in the view we have by the perspective from which we operate.

When we use words to describe concepts, social events, or human relationships, we reflect a particular perspective. Words limit how and what we say. When we put something into language it is not the truth. Human language is not designed to tell the truth. I inform the students that in human affairs they do not tell the truth either.

It is essential for the students to examine the idea of relational truth. A perspective carries with it a preoccupation with certain activities and selective inattention toward other activities. In our limited human perspectives, we know reality or truth only in part. When we are children, we relate as children; when we are adults, we relate as adults. In our professional roles we interact as professionals. There is a bigger picture than the one we see from our limited perspectives. We only see parts of the truth. The height of illusion is to take part of the truth and make it the whole truth.

Relationship truth in the human reality does not exist. When we put language to an activity, it is only a point of view.

I tell the students that if I do not tell the truth, then it follows that I do not know anything either. Intellectually, we can deal with the notion that we do not know anything. Intellectually, we sense that our words represent our estimate of reality. Emotionally, it is difficult not to know. For survival purposes we need to know. When it comes to human relationships, we don’t know. I don’t know exactly how close or distant to be with my wife or children at certain times. How close or distant should one be to one’s teenage child, or adult child? Not knowing is emotionally troublesome to us, but as finite humans, we only have our perspectives as a basis for truth in the arena of human relationships.

Most people understand that in matters of human activities, we do not have the final answer or the truth. For some, it is intellectually comforting to know that when we deal in human affairs, there is no one truth we should seek to uncover.

As relational therapists, we deal in theory and practice application on a probability basis. Research and practice wisdom guide us, but they are based on probabilities and perspectives, not the truth. Therapy, like all of life, is a problem-solving process wrapped in probabilities. In human relationships we often know what is likely to happen, but we don’t know for certain.

It is essential to make the distinction between spiritually based moral absolutes and the dynamics of relational truth. In relational truth we are dealing with the inherent limits on the human capacity to deal with reality. From our human position in life, we see what we see and know what we know, but we see through the glass of life darkly and partially.

Therapy, like all of life, is a problem-solving process wrapped in probabilities.

Imagine driving through a large city in our country. Why do we choose to obey the speed limits and traffic signals? We know that if we generally obey the traffic rules, it is likely that we will safely make it from one place to another. Now, imagine driving through the same large town going 100 miles per hour and disobeying all the traffic signals. It is quite likely that either you will have an accident or that you will be stopped by the police. Your probabilities for making it from one place to another are quite low. If we walk along the side of a tall building with one foot over the edge of the building, the probabilities of falling are higher than if we stay several feet from the edge. Sometimes, we enjoy walking close to the edge, the thrill of danger is a pleasure to us. Some of us are very conservative when we play the probabilities of life; we never walk close to the edge if we can avoid it.

It is clear to many people that, given the nature of human beings, we cannot always accurately predict the behavior of either ourselves or other people. We can, and we do, use probability thinking as we engage the human problem-solving process. This means that in matters of human activities, we use probability dynamics rather than deterministic outcomes.

Past and Present Choices

In family matters, we know that the past influences the present and the present influences the future. Because of continuity through time, we can make fairly accurate assessments about the future. What I am doing at this moment is a selection of activity out of the many possibilities that were available to me at a point in the past. This process is called dynamic causation by Capek.² In dynamic causation, life is a continuous present act of selection from among possibilities that have been provided from the past. If we know the pattern of choices made in the past, our ability to predict accurately for the future is high. Past behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. Choice then becomes a crucial dynamic in the ongoing flow of life. Self-awareness includes awareness of our choices and our pattern of choices. So, put another way, choices made in the past influence the choice possibilities for the present that, in turn, influence the choice possibilities for the future.

Relational Choice

Humans exert will and volition in matters of human relationships. We are not automatons; the extent of our will and volition is limited by our human nature. We do what humans do. We are designed to do that which serves our survival, safety, and growth, both physically and psychologically. We seek pleasure and anything we associate with pleasure; we avoid pain and anything we associate with pain. A major governing mechanism underlying the processes of all relationships is our natural avoidance of pain and affinity for pleasure.

We are not bound by narrow instinctual restrictions, nor are we wholly conditioned by social forces. We are capable of degrees of subjection to and freedom from raw instinctual control, social and emotional conditioning, traumatic events, powerful external forces, and internalized past experiences. We have in us a powerful push to grow to our full physical, mental, and emotional capacities. The push to maturity is part of our human heredity.

Separateness, Connectedness, and Differentiation

In the world of human beings, we see much of life in terms of relationship distances. How often do we say, “I feel close to her” or “I feel distance from him”? The forces of togetherness and the forces of separateness are powerful and unrelenting. We want to be individuals, and we want to be close to others. Murray Bowen made the processes of separateness and togetherness the cornerstones of his conceptualization of the emotional, relational world of humans.³

There is separateness and connectedness in the functioning of the physical world as there is in the emotional, relational world.

P. L. Steinke⁴

In Bowen’s scheme of things, all of us struggle with the basic life processes of maintaining a strong sense of exactly who we are individually and staying in close touch with others. Bowen calls the separation/togetherness struggle part of “the differentiation process.” In his writings, he pointed out that differentiation is part of nature itself. Differentiation is a fundamental life force in which something struggles to be itself. Both molecular biology and quantum physics have discovered the importance of boundary concerns in the life process.

Human relationships are inherently anxious. There is a part of each of us whose purpose is survival. Survival concerns are not easily put to rest. It is in our relationships to others that we demonstrate the emotional survival processes of our very being. We are never at ease for very long in our relationships with others. The intense need for separateness and togetherness in human relationships inevitabl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Relational Systems Model
• Chapter 2. The Realities: Self, Other, Context, and Spiritual
• Chapter 3. Necessary but Not Sufficient Considerations: Part One
• Chapter 4. Necessary but Not Sufficient Considerations: Part Two
• Chapter 5. Life Stances
• Chapter 6. The Interpersonal
• Chapter 7. Context: The Family-An Emotional System
• Chapter 8. Context: The Family-A Social System
• Chapter 9. Context: The Transgenerational Family
• Chapter 10. Context: Family Developmental Stages
• Chapter 11. Putting It Together: The Treatment Process
• Appendix. Stance Tendency Exercise Packet
• Bibliography
• Index