Virginia Satirs Theory of Family Therapy

Sophie Vila MFT5311 Intergenerational model of family therapy

History of Approach
Born in 1916 and dies in 1988 Starts as a teacher and becomes a well-known international trainer Enters private practice and meets her first family in 1951 Works at Illinois Psychiatric Institute and spreads the idea to work with patient and their families Founds the Mental Health Research Institute and starts first-ever formal family therapy training program in 1962 Becomes known through her books, training and workshops Known as a pioneer of family therapy, the Mother of family systems therapy Creates family reconstruction (1960) and role playing Founded the International Human Learning Resources (1970) and the Avanta (1977) Networks to reach out to individuals, families and mental health practitioners

Satirs writing contribution to humanistic psychology

Major Books 1964- Conjoint Family therapy. Provided a major

alternative for dealing with individuals and families.

1972- Peoplemaking 1988 the New Peoplemaking 1991- The Satir Model: Family Therapy and beyond
Few Minor Books

Your Many Faces

The Third Birth: Becoming your own maker Self-Esteem

Family Pathology and Health

Focus on Health and possibilities, not pathology Coping style indicates level of self-esteem Hope is a significant component for change and health Connect on the basis of being similar but grow on the basis of being different Base human relationships on equality of value Communicate with congruence, respect and acceptance of one another Possess high self-esteem Meet needs of all members, tolerate mistakes, have flexible rules

Goals of Satirs Model

lasting change Enhancing awareness Understanding pattern of communication Building high self-esteem Expanding self discovery and self response Reshaping relationship Discovering dysfunctional relational dynamics Tapping into internal resources to change external behaviors Developing congruent living style

Satirs Goals

Satirs Beliefs from her notes

My approach, the Human Process Validation Model is based on the premise that all we manifest at any point in time represents what we have learned, consciously, implicitly, cellularly. Our behavior reflects what we have learned. Learning is the basis of behavior. To change behavior, we need to have new learning. To accomplish new learning, we need a motive, a purpose, a nurturing context, and a trust in something from the outside to help us.

Model Assumptions
All human beings have ability to grow from an inner sense of strength, motive and reality Patterns are repeated from growing up time Change occurs trough a process of growth

Content gives the context in which change occurs

All humans have self-worth inside, differences lie in how they manifest it

People are equal in value but unique in their combination of human sameness and differenteness

Model Assumptions

Change is possible. External change may be limited but internal change is possible Peoples coping style indicates their level of self-esteem People are basically good People need to connect with inner resources to validate their own self-worth Viewing parental figures as human beings rather than in their roles, move people towards wholeness

Key Concepts
Survival stances protect people self-worth against verbal and nonverbal, and perceived and presumed threats. Communication involves external and internal change
How we communicate

Key Concepts
Congruence is a state of being and communicating with others. Therapists communicate with congruence, humor, high selfesteem and flexibility. Enhancing self-esteem and congruence change the self, I am Perception of the world takes place first in our family: our primary Dad triad.
child

Mom

Act and Communicate with Congruence

Appreciate self Free personal and interpersonal energy Become more fully human Trust and love oneself and others Open and be flexible to change Take risks and accept vulnerability Use inner and outer resources Take into account self, context and others

Three Levels of Congruence

Survival Stances
Coping process is a result of how we feel about ourselves Four survival stances: - Placating - Blaming - Being super-reasonable - Being irrelevant Each survival stance requires the support of another person who is also communicating incongruently

Placating

Resource:

Caring Sensitivity

Blaming

Resource:

Assertiveness

Being superreasonable

Resource:

Intellect

Being Irrelevant

Resource:

Fun Spontaneous Creative

Satirs Approach

The Process of Change

Goal and meaning Problem and trigger

Goal is to change survival stances into congruent open communication. People learn only when they are in a state of chaos. Change is an internal shift that brings about external change. A process of discovery, awareness and understanding. A process that adds, expands and transforms something else to what already exists.

People establish a status quo. They know their context and how it fits into their world. Foreign elements are unwelcomed, denied or eliminated. People avoid change A stimulus becomes necessary for meaningful change. Stimulus has to come from outside. Internal change occurs due to threat, pain, fear and hope.

Stage of Change
Status quo: Need for change emerges

Introduction foreign element: System articulates need to another person.

Chaos: System moves into a state of disequilibrium. Integration: System integrates new learning, and a new states emerges. Practice: System practices new learning, and strengthens the new state New status quo: New status quo represents a more functional state of being.

Stage 1-Status Quo

Family has clear set of expectations and reactions Repetition is self-reinforce Stances and beliefs are powerful Person and behavior are separated Exchange of values is unfair and unjust but stable Members cope with survival stances Therapist must find the thread to original systemic crisis

Stage 2- Introduction new element

Foreign element is therapist Majority of family members must accept outside element Therapist models congruence to give hope Therapist is in charge of the process Therapist conveys acceptance, credibility, and an awareness of change Therapist must make personal contact below level of coping dynamics and survival stances

Stage 3 Chaos
System operates in unpredictable ways Therapist must neutralize familys fear and anxiety Therapist stays congruent, calm, supportive and accepting of family members Therapist stands back, stays grounded, explores expectations, and investigates peoples feeling Therapist may use humor, reframing or sculpting

Stage 4 - Integration
Development of new possibilities Re-evaluation of past and present expectations Use of inner resources Acceptance of parents, life experiences, self-worth and future Letting go of survival stances Decision about how to be perceived by others and self Differentiation between anxiety and excitement

Stage 5 - Implementation Practice Stage Therapist wants to encourage affirmations, meditations, anchoring exercises or the writing of reminders Goal is to eliminate the way that blocks people from functioning more fully

Stage 6 New Status Quo

Provide a new Status quo Give a healthier equilibrium People relate more fully New set of prediction, sense of comfort, selfimage and hope emerge

The stages, in the process of change, build one upon the other.
Stages are multiphasic and repetitious Process of change continues throughout life

Ingredient of an Interaction
Intervention can be used independently of any other technique Focus on the internal mental and emotional patterns use in processing messages Explore family rules that people follow for processing information Analyze coping style Identify what people learned from their family of origin, and replace their old learning of interaction with healthier and more relevant ways Ask six questions about specific intervention Identify defenses, explore alternatives ways to perceive oneself, and change patterns to more healthy ways Aim to help people understand themselves

Ingredients of an Interaction Process

The transformation Process

Experience takes place within specific context at this moment Content of problem is the context in which change is possible Content provides context to identify coping behaviors Self affects external behavior and context affects self

Yearnings Expectations Perceptions Emotions Coping stances Behaviors

Self

6 levels of Experience

The Parts Party

Process that identifies, transforms, and integrates a persons inner parts and resources

Parts Party Steps

Step 1: Preparation of the host Step 2: Description of the parts behavior Step 3: Development of a conflict between the parts Step 4: Transformation of the parts to resolve the conflict Step 5: Integration experience. Ritual to integrate the transformation process

The Parts Party

Prepare the guide and host by developing trust
From trust and process the host gain hope.

Host selects six to eight parts to work with, and think of well-known people or characters to represent these parts Select the role-players Use adjectives, body movements, and interactive behaviors to describe parts Parts meet, develop a conflict, and transform it by achieving cooperation Perform the integration ritual to take charge of the parts with new choices and new energy

Family Reconstruction
Allow people to relive past experiences from formative years in the family of origin Provide new way of seeing self and family of origin, thus seeing present and future in a new perspective Offer an opportunity to make sense of all relational parts of our experience Allow people to see themselves and family members in a way that exposes their beliefs, ignorance, unawareness, and misunderstanding Help body and mind move beyond stress, survival and coping to positive way of expressing and experiencing life

Family Reconstruction Process

1. Introduction of clients life history Construction of family map, family life chronology, wheel of influence 2. Sculpting of family of origin and parents family of origin Client externalizes construct of family dynamics, and identifies perceptions and feelings when under stress Focus on major learning within parents family of origin Verbalize own unmet expectations and yearnings Express feelings, identify strengths and weaknesses Accept self and parents, similarities and differences, parents as human beings and self high self-esteem

Level of Change in Family Reconstruction

Other Techniques
Self Mandala: the universal human resources
Emotional Every part affects each other

Each part is connected and interdependent

Physical

I AM Self

Sensual

Stress occurs when any of the eight parts is discounted, denied, or rejected Contextual

Each part is of equal value

Self-Esteem Kit
A Medallion
To hang around your neck
Yes, Thank you for noticing me Sides of medallion No, Thank you it does not fit me now

A detective Hat
To use when puzzle or need effort to understand To go on a journey of exploration

A key to integrity
To say the real yes or no

An Empowering Wand, a wishing hand, and a courage stick

Use it to empower yourself, use yourself as reference

A golden key
Use to open any door Ask any question Make speakable what is unspeakable Attempt the undoable

A wisdom box
To contact with all the wisdom of the universe, the wisdom from the past and inside self

Sculpting
Picture each member of the family Sculpt the perception of the family relationship Inform self and others about internal process in relation to other and self Bring awareness of familys context and each members context Externalize the ways a family communicates, its life cycle, and its intergenerational patterns Externalize members inclusion or exclusion, enmeshment or estrangement, and dominance or submission Thrive best in climate of connectedness, trust, and safety

Other Vehicles of Change

Making contact Metaphors Humor

Temperature reading
Family members share and experience human environment internally and externally

Meditations
I need to remember

Appreciations or Excitements Worries, concerns, puzzles Complaints & Solutions New Information Hopes and wishes

I am me
And in all the world there is no one like me. I give myself permission To discover me and use me lovingly. I look at myself and see A beautiful instrument in which that can happen. I love me I appreciate me I value me.

Sensitivity to Diversity
Virginia Satir had a profound respect for human life, although people have unique characteristics, all have the same basic needs. "I want to appreciate you without judging; join you without invading; invite you without demanding; leave you without guilt." -Virginia Satir.
In all her work Satir acknowledged, understood, accepted, and valued, the

differences among all people no matter their age, class, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, race, sexual orientation, and spiritual practice. We get together on the basis of our similarities; we grow on the basis of our differences. Virginia Satir

Research Evidence
Joan Winter (1993) wrote a significant research for her doctoral dissertation to evidence the efficacy of Satirs human validation process model. Her research compared the family therapies approaches of Bowen, Haley and Satir. Successful therapies depended on: - Therapists ability to make contact - Mutual completion of therapy - Satisfaction of clients on both the therapist and treatment outcome.

Result of Research
Satir systems drop out rate was 5.1%, Bowen 36.5%, and Haley 60.9% Satir therapists success for engaging clients was 93.7%, Bowen 36.5%, and Haley 67.6% Satir therapists rate for completion of treatment was 88.8%, Bowen 57.9%, and Haley 26.5% Satir model rated higher in satisfaction for therapist and treatment outcome than Haley and Bowen models

More studies are needed to evaluate the Satir model. However, this research, in addition of her successful work during her lifetime, is a good indication for the validation of the Satir model of therapy.

Model Evaluation

Strength
concentrates on multigenerational patterns Diagnoses dysfunctional dynamics in relationships Respects the uniqueness of each human life Can be applied to several work settings, cultures, family types, groups, couple and individuals Aims at lasting change Increases individual self-esteem Improves interpersonal communication skills Enhances family functioning Provides a process model for both personal and professional growth
function

Weaknesses
Depends on therapist creativity, charisma, and personality Assumes that parents did their best with what they had (not necessarily true, particularly in abusing cases)

Lacks research on effectiveness

Assumes all people grew up in a family with parents (primary triad)

Bibliography
About Virginia Satir. (2005-2007). Satir centre of Australia for the family.
Retrieved February 26, 2007, from Satir Centre of Australia Web site: http://www.satiraustralia.com/virginia_satir.asp

Maki-Banmen, K. (2001). Changing the impact of family rules. In Satir Institute of the Pacific. Retrieved February 26, 2007, from Satir institute Web site: http://www.satirpacific.org/articles/articles.htm
McLendon, J. A. (1999). The Satir system in action. In Beyond talk therapy: Using movement and expressive techniques in clinical practice. (pp. 29-54). Psycbooks. Retrieved March 5, 2007, from Proquest database (PsycBOOKS Unique ID: 1999-02581-002). *Satir, V., Banmen, J., Gerber, J., & Gomori, M. (1991). The Satir model family therapy and beyond. Palo Alto California: Science and Behavior Books.

Bibliography
*The Virgina Satir network. (2004-2006). Avanta. Retrieved February 26, 2007, from Avanta The Virginia Satir Network Web site: http://www.avanta.net/ *Virginia Satir. (1998). Family therapy-therapists profiles. Retrieved February 26, 2007, from Allyn & Bacon Web site: http://www.abacon.com/famtherapy/satir.html Winter, J. E. (1993). Selected family therapy outcomes with Bowen, Haley, and Satir. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The College of William and Mary, United States -- Virginia. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. AAT 9326240) Retrieved March 5, 2007, from Proquest database (ProQuest document ID: 744475701).