Family Counseling

A Systems Approach

Laura Sue Dodson, DeWayne J. Kurpius

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317757368
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in 1977. Above all else, the counselor is the most important factor in family counseling. Personal development, personal awareness and the use of self are basic to the counselor's effectiveness with a family. The school is the institution most aligned with the task of the family-the development of the individual. Working hand-in-hand, the task of each institution is accomplished more fully and made easier by the investment of both the family and school. The author presents her approach to family counselling.

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Section 1

A Growth Model

for

Family Life

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A Growth Model for Family Life

The family unit, broadly speaking, is a unit of people who live together and share life’s basic day-by-day functions. Throughout history, humanity has demonstrated need for such a core group, yet also has demonstrated need for each individual member to grow. These dual, sometimes contrasting, human needs create the paradoxes of the family unit, in which exist struggle for separateness and togetherness, differentness and sameness, protection and freedom, support and independence.

The Family and the Family Life Paradox

The purpose of the family unit is to create a vessel or an environment for the development of mature, fully-functioning individuals. The paradox of the family situation is that this end is achieved only as the individuals in the family are contributing to and participating in the family process. When the family unit and an individual within this unit is confronted with an either/or situation, which would mean the satisfaction of one member at the expense of another member, growth barriers tend to be created. In effect, this either/or situation is resolved at the expense of both, since the wellbeing of the two is indivisible. At the highest level of complementary coexistence, conflict and resolution occur without an either/or mandate: rather the conflict and resolution occur within a process of mutual nurturing of growth. The conceptual framework on which this writing is based and with which this section is particularly concerned is that in order for a family to function at the complementary coexistence level, it must operate within a “growth framework.”

“The Paradox of the Family Unit”

The Growth Framework

When operating in a growth framework, family members accept as an ever-existing fact that tension, at times, will exist between needs of individuals and needs of the core group. Family members confront these issues as the issues appear in the life process and the members deal with each incident without any necessity of precedents or patterns for behavior.

When a family is not in a growth framework, seemingly arbitrary decisions might be made, and such decisions may have little to do with the present, or may be made on the basis of low self-esteem in the individuals involved. Family members may seem to be immune to the influence of new data, and rigid stances of behavior may be observed. When decisions must be made, individuals may approach the situation without a process of shared ideas or feelings or input of information, and instead proceed with absolute certainty of the correct outcome. The attitude may be “don’t bother me with the facts.” The process which then follows reflects an effort to make behavior match expected outcomes.

In a growth framework, externally or internally superimposed behaviors do not determine interaction or decision, instead the family is involved in a process of interaction in which current data and feelings are considered in decision making. Allowances exist for each person’s ideas, anticipating difference and/or compromise. Flexibility must occur both in behavior and attitude which allows for evolution of decisions appropriate to particular people and circumstances at a particular time. Outcomes frequently are not as important as the processes involved in the reaching of these outcomes. A family operating in a growth framework cannot be recognized readily by what the outcomes are, but is sooner revealed by how these outcomes are accomplished.

In a growth framework when events or stimuli occur involving family members, the members do not react by retreating from one another, by fearing self-disclosure, or by avoiding confrontation and discussion. Instead, family members attempt to become aware of their own feelings and thoughts and they feel free to share or not share these feelings, as appropriate to the situation at the time. Members can choose to reveal themselves openly to one another without fear of rejection or blame. However, they also may choose not to be open with each other in a growth framework, but not for such a secondary purpose as avoiding feared expectations. Members can be apart or together, as is fitting for each individual. Members sense their potential availability, commitment and unconditional love to others, a feeling which aids them in their growth process.

In a growth framework, each individual assumes responsibility for one’s own behavior. Even with the youngest child, a growing sense of personal responsibility for behavior is evident. Statements such as “I did it when Dad told me to …” are more likely to be made than “Dad made me do it.”

To the degree that a family is operating in a growth framework, it is described by this author as an “actualizing family.” Of course, families are not either actualizing or non-actualizing, operating in a growth framework or not operating in a growth framework; rather, one can say family actualization occurs in a process of family growth and development. Families become more actualizing in direct relation to the self-actualization of members.

Family Growth Process and Family Actualization

Operating in an actualizing manner is a more frequent occurrence as the family is attending to its hierarchy of needs. The family has basic needs that must be met in the process of family growth. These needs can be paralleled to the individual need hierarchy described by Maslow, (1962) in his book, Toward a Psychology of Being. The family need hierarchy may be expressed as follows:

Survival. The family has a need to survive together. On a biological level, a need exists for food, shelter, and clothing. Emotionally, the family needs to survive and feel secure as an intact system, while at the same time its individuals survive and feel secure in continuing their individuation process.

Belonging Needs. The family has a need to feel a basic sense of belonging together, a feeling that, within the family unit, everyone has a place. The family unit also needs to feel that it belongs in the larger system of the community. Individuals in the family need a sense of being loved by other members and need to feel love toward other members.

Esteem. The family needs esteem for itself. Family members must have respect for their existence together and for their common purposes and goals. The family needs to value its struggles and pleasures. To gain this esteem, each family member attempts to understand the interaction of the family and hopes that the interaction holds meaning that once understood, can be respected in the context of that person’s life and the family life.

Need to Actualize. Family members have a need to enhance their personal growth and the growth of others in the family unit, and to pool knowledge, skill, feeling, intuition, and uniqueness to evolve a system of interaction which will facilitate and enrich the individuation process in a way which the individual cannot accomplish alone.

Once needs are being satisfied at lower or primary levels in a fairly consistent manner, families, like individuals, naturally yearn for and need development on the higher levels of increased family esteem and increased family actualization.

Peak Experiences in an Actualizing Family

Peak family experiences occur when family members maintain their separate identities and simultaneously can go beyond selfhood and feel as one with others. The differentiation of self from others has been basically resolved so striving toward it is no longer important. Movement toward individuation* and being one’s full and unrestrained self in the presence of others who are doing the same must occur. And this movement occurs within a climate of mutual appreciation and respect. These contributing factors allow the possibility of a peak experience of self/other acutalization to occur. For example, the mother can feel as one with her child, and a couple can come closer to what Buber (1970) calls an “I-Thou” relationship. Both parents and children can richly experience new awareness of themselves and each other in the moment. This experience is the height of family actualization. As families become more actualizing (operate more in a growth framework), such experiences occur more frequently within the units. (See example in case, p. 113.)

A family may be tempted to strive for a state of actualizing and reaching peak experiences, neglecting the foundations and evolutions necessary for these to occur. Or they may try to “hang on” to such experiences or to reproduce them. Ironically, perhaps, such experiences cannot be sought or created. These experiences can only evolve, usually with a certain element of surprise, as individuals tend to their own growth processes and as families become more actualizing in day-by-day, moment-by-moment behaviors. For an example of a family peak experience see pp. 111-113.

Guidelines Toward Family Actualization

Actualizing family systems cannot happen siitç›ly because the members love one another or have good intentions toward one another; nor does actualizing fail to happen because people are bad or wrong. Instead, the degree of actualizing within a family is determined by where the members are in their own growth and development and where, in growth, the family system is.

Family actualization is enhanced by the development of self-esteem in individuals within the family. This actualization evolves as one feels a positive view toward one’s own and toward others’ potentials and as members feel respect for one another. Further, only those families can experience actualization whose members are willing to deal with the duality of needs of self and systems and therefore are willing to invest some of their life energy into the quality of development of both.

For a family to be actualizing, members must not allow the system itself to gain power, life, and momentum of its own beyond its function as a vessel to contain individuals as they grow and change. The nature of the family system must not demand that individuals be in continual service to the maintenancy of the system at the limitation of personal growth. Rather, the major emphasis in the actualizing family is that the system is in service to the individuals within the family unit. This means that the system must change as individual needs change. A reversal to dysfunctional behavior may occur when individuals misuse the family.

Non-Actualizing Families and Dysfunctional Behavior

A family, by virtue of its existence as a group of persons living together with depth of intrapsychic involvement, is vulnerable to misuse by its members. For example, the family can be misused as a place for any of the following:

1. For an individual to subscribe to family role expectations rather than enter into the struggle for one’s own identity through self-development.
2. For a member to project one’s problems on others.
3. For an individual to invest energy in maintaining a rigid position in the family such as (a) the boss, (b) the bossed one or the placator, (c) the rescuer of others in the family, (d) the keeper of the family or societal rules, and (e) the distractor, or the irrelevant one.

With these occurrences (many more could be cited), an environment is created that is conducive to limitation of individual growth. The resulting family system will be characterized by rigid behaviors and tend to limit, if not stifle, individual growth. Under such conditions the family, then, operates in direct opposition to an individual’s natural inclination toward development of one’s potential.

The process of family actualization and self-actualization is not easy. In fact, frequently the process is stressful and creates an environment of living with insecurity. When each incident is met without behavioral precedent, one cannot know what will happen next. One individual does not control others. Each is open to the movement and growth life offers; therefore, one must be alert and adaptive and make fresh decisions as circumstances change.

The nature of pain and distress in the process of actualization is a completely different experience than that of pain and distress as a consequence of a rigid family system. The former carries with it a tinge of excitement and hope. The experiences may be said to “hurt good.” In the rigid system, an absence of hope and an overlay of feeling trapped and defeated is evident.

To the degree that families are not a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Section 1: A Growth Model for Family Life
• Section 2: Conceptual Frameworks for Understanding Families
• Section 3: The Family Counselor
• Section 4: Process and Technique of Family Counseling Presented with Case Example
• Section 5: Some Possible Pitfalls in Family Counseling
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors