Therapist: Margaret, is there anything that you would like to say to Marcie?
Margaret: Oh, oh ... , mmm, let me see ... well, actually, I do want to tell you that your face looked so nice and soft when you just said what you did. I mean, ... I really liked watching you and hearing what you said, and any time you want to say anything like that again, I'll be glad to listen.
Therapist: Marcie (turning to her), did you hear her? (pointing to Margaret)
Marcie: (crying softly) Yes, I did.
Here, the therapist begins by identifying the by-now-familiar pattern of Mind Reading. He challenges the calibrated feedback by asking the mother to check with her daughter to find out whether or not her hallucination is accurate. Marcie immediately balks. This notifies the therapist at once that a family rule is involved — specifically, the rule that, in this family, the expression of concern by the mother for the daughter (and, in our experience, this rule probably applies to other members of the family as well) cannot be explicitly communicated verbally. In other words, in the terms which we have been developing, the rule eliminates the output channel of verbal expression for messages of concern.
The therapist stays with Marcie, encouraging her until she successfully breaks the family rule against expressing concern through bodily contact. As soon as the mother has accomplished this, he moves to the daughter and works with her to provide positive feedback to Marcie. Then, he extends this new learning, the ability to use the output channel of direct verbal expression to communicate concern, and has the daughter break the rule, also. Next, he creates another option for expressing messages of love and concern within the family system. He guesses at and then verifies that there is a rule against the mother and daughter (and, most probably, the other family members) expressing their love and concern physically — that is, he identifies another output channel which has been knocked out by a rule.
Therapist: I have a hunch about something. Marcie, is there any way that you can imagine that you could, right now, express your concern for Margaret?
Marcie: Huh, I don't see how . . . , I . . . no . .. I can't.
Therapist: Well, are you willing to learn another way of expressing your concern for Margaret?
Marcie: Sure, I'm game. I sorta like what I've learned so far.
Therapist: Marcie, I would like you to slowly get up, cross over to Margaret, and hold her gently.
Marcie: What? That's silly; things like that ... oh, that's what I said the last time, (getting up and crossing the room to Margaret and slowly, at first clumsily, and then more gracefully, embracing her)
Therapist: (quietly turning to Tim) And, Tim, what are you aware of as you watch this?
Tim: (startled) Ahh, I want some, too.
This is an excellent example of the outcome of a therapeutic intervention to assist the family members in congruently expressing their feelings and caring for each other. The therapist assists the members of the family in becoming congruent in the expression of important messages. As this happens, he immediately generalizes this new learning to include other output channels — other choices for harmonious expressions — and other family members.
SUMMARY
In Part I, we have attempted to begin to develop a model of the ways in which we have found it useful to organize our experience in family therapy. We have done this by, first, attempting to find a point of common experience from which to build our model. This point of common experience is a description here in words which each of you can associate with the actual rich and complex experiences you have had in your work as family therapists. As we stated previously, models of experience — our model of family therapy — are to be judged as useful or not useful, not as true or false, accurate or inaccurate. The first requirement for a model to be useful is that you must be able to connect it with your experience — thus, the need for a common reference point. We have selected language patterns as the common reference point; these constitute the Patterns of Family Therapy, Level I.
The second level of patterns which we have identified involve non-verbal as well as verbal patterns. We have not attempted to be exhaustive — there are many more patterns of which we are aware which we have found to be extremely useful in our work in family therapy. Rather, we have attempted to identify the minimum set of patterns which we feel necessary for creative, dynamic and effective family therapy. In the next part, Part II, we will group these patterns into natural classes and specify some of the ways in which we fit them together in effective, larger level patterning. We will also, in this next part, focus more on the choices which the family therapist has in assisting the family members to change the patterns of their system to make possible the process of change and growth, both for each of them as individuals and for the family as a whole.
PART II
Introduction
In this part of the book, we will present the overall model for family therapy. Models for complex behavior are ways of explicitly organizing your experience for acting effectively in this area. Family therapy is assuredly one of the most complex areas of human behavior. For our model to be useful for each of us as a family therapist, it must reduce the complexity to a level which we, as humans, are able to handle. In the model we present here, we have kept that requirement clearly in mind; we have identified what we consider the minimum distinctions which will allow the therapist to organize his experience in family therapy so that he may act in a way which will be both effective and creative. What this means is that, in our experience, when we are careful to make the distinctions we present in our model, and when we organize our experience in the category specified in the model in the sequence stated, we have been consistently effective and dynamic in our work with families.
In Part I of this book, we identified and gave examples of some of the patterns we consider necessary for effective family therapy. In this portion of the book, we group those patterns into natural classes. These natural classes specify a sequence in which the therapist can, in our experience, usefully employ those first-level patterns — they show him an order in which he may effectively apply the patterns identified in Part I. The result of this grouping is an explicit, formal strategy for family therapy. The strategy is explicit in that it specifies both the parts of the process of family therapy (the patterns of Part I) and the sequence in which they can be applied. Because it is explicit, the strategy is also learnable. The strategy is formal in that it is independent of content — it applies equally well to any family therapy session, regardless of the actual "problems" which the family brings to the session. Again, we are stressing that there is a process independent of content. Our attention is basically on the process. Change the process and new uses of content are possible. The process depends only upon the forms and sequences of the patterns which occur in the communication between the family members and the therapist. For example, the process is independent of the length of the therapeutic session. Another way to explain what we mean when we point out that the strategy given by our model is formal, is to say that the model deals with process — it focuses on the patterns of coping within the family system, irrespective of the specific problems found within that family.
It is important for us to emphasize this distinction between content and process. Our model of family therapy is designed to assist the family in coping effectively at the process level. In other words, independently of whether the members of the family believe their "problem" to be in the area of sex, or money, or child-rearing practices, in-laws, discipline, or whatever, effective family therapy will expand their choices of expressing congruent communication and of coping in every area of their experience as a family. In our work, we have found that assisting family members in having new choices at the process level in any area of content will generalize naturally to other areas of their experience.[19]
Furthermore, our model is designed to provide each of you with a way of organizing your experience so that you have a direction, a way of knowing what happens next, not by
deciding beforehand what will happen but by recognizing the patterns presented to you by the family. Perhaps most important for your continued growth as a potent family therapist, it provides you with a way of getting feedback, a way of finding out what works. Our hope is that you will accept this model and find it useful in your difficult but rewarding work as a people-helper.
We feel that it is helpful to you, the reader, in using the patterns in the model for family therapy which we have created, to have an explicit, clear understanding of the process we call communication. We would remind the reader that what we present as our model of the word communication does not completely cover either our understanding or our experience. Rather, we offer it as a guide to assist you in finding meaning in our model for family therapy. Visually, we can represent the process of communication in the following steps:
1. Communication (communicator) = the messages offered by the person doing the communicating. The person communicating will present these messages in many different forms — body postures; movement of hands, arms,etc.; eye-scanning patterns; voice tonality and tempo; breathing rate; words, sentence syntax, etc. Furthermore, these messages may or may not be in the conscious awareness of the person communicating.
2. Experience (receiver) = the messages received by the person to whom the communication is directed. The messages are received through the various sensory channels: eyes, ears, skin, etc. These messages may or may not be in the conscious awareness of the person receiving them.
3. Conclusion (receiver) = the understanding reached by the person receiving the messages as to what the messages mean. Again, the receiver may reach an understanding both in and out of conscious awareness.
4. Generalization (receiver) = the way in which the person receiving the messages connects them with his past experience, and the way in which the receiver uses his understanding of the messages received to shape his comprehensions and responses explain their use in the present and, without intervention, for the future.
5. Response Behavior (receiver) = the way in which the person receiving the messages responds. This step in the communication cycle is equivalent to the first step when the original communicator and receiver have switched positions. In the diagram on page 98, this is the meaning of the arrow which cycles back, connecting the last step in the diagram to the first step.
In our experience, the process of communication between two or more people rarely occurs in this sequence; rather, the steps typically overlap. For example, even as I arrange my body in a certain posture, move my hands and feet and eyes, produce a certain tone of voice, speak at a specific speed, utter the specific words in the specific sentence forms, I see movements as you shift your body posture, move your hands, nod or shake your head, etc. — movements which present messages to me which I incorporate (both in and out of awareness) into my ongoing communication. Thus, as with any model which we create, we have made discrete and separate the ongoing flow of experience in order to attempt to fully understand all of the messages and to create new choices for ourselves.
As family therapists, one way for us to understand the task which we have set for ourselves is to assist the families who come to us in pain to create new choices for themselves, both as individuals and as a family unit. The family's pain becomes for the therapist a signal for a powerful intervention for change. Pain, therefore, is in itself a useful message. We interpret it as a wish to grow in an area in which the person needs help to achieve that growth. More specifically, we work to discover the needs and to help the family members change the patterns of communication by which they are creating this pain for themselves. Using the previously given, five-step model for communication, we ask how we can train ourselves to be more skillfull in discovering the patterns which are causing the family pain, and how we can re-organize the family's resources so as to transform the patterns of pain into patterns of positive communication which each family member can use to gain what he or she wants. Another way of stating this is to ask: What are the characteristics of the patterns of miscommunication in families; by what particular process are they created; and how, specifically, can we intervene in the family system to help the members transform the patterns of miscommunication into resources for themselves? To answer these questions, we will describe two extreme patterns of communication — the pattern of calibrated communication, which results in pain and dissatisfaction for the people involved, and the pattern of feedback communication, which results in choices for the people involved. Whether the communication is congruent or incongruent, the process of communication will continue — in both cases, each of us acts and reacts. Typically, the way we act in the context of incongruent communication is untimely, inappropriate, and chaotic, while, in the context of congruent communication, we act timely, creatively, and appropriately to the occasion.
CALIBRATED COMMUNICATION CYCLE
We now describe the specific characteristics of a typical calibrated communication cycle[20] which results in pain for the people involved. We use the five-step communication model.
1. Communication (communicator): In both the formation and the running-off of the calibrated cycle, the person initiating the messages is acting incongruently. In other words, the messages carried by the communicator's body position and movements, his voice tonality, his skin tone and color, the tempo of his speech, the words, the sentence syntax, etc., do not match. Usually, the communicator who is incongruent in his communication is unaware that the messages which he is presenting to the receiver do not match. This is possible because he is aware of only some of the messages he is presenting — the set of conflicting messages remains outside of his awareness. For example:
George: (head shaking slowly from side to side, breathing shallow and irregular, all body weight on right leg, left leg slightly forward, voice quality harsh and raspy, left hand slightly extended, index finger pointing, right hand extended, palm up)
Ooohh, Mother, how delightful of you to drop in on us.
Here the messages carried by George's body — his movements, breathing, voice tone and words — do not match. Yet, George, if questioned about it, would very likely be aware only of the words which he uttered and not the conflicting messages carried by his other communication channels. Which set of messages George is most aware of is closely connected to what his most used representational system is. We understand that George, in this situation, is not lying, attempting to deceive himself or his mother-in-law, or even being insincere. Rather, we know that George has several simultaneous responses to unexpectedly finding his mother-in-law standing on his front porch. A part of George responds by attempting to be gracious and welcoming to his mother-in-law; another part of George apparently is startled, upset, and angry, etc. The point for us to make is that each of the messages carried by George is a valid representation of a part of him at that moment in time. To deny, or ignore, or judge as bad any of these messages and the parts of George which produced them is to deny or ignore some important elements of George which can serve as powerful resources for him. In fact, they can serve as an opportunity for growth and change. Furthermore, in our experience, it is, literally, impossible to actually deny or ignore a part of a person; that part will continually assert itself until it is accepted, possibly transformed and integrated into the whole person. One example from traditional psychiatry of this continual assertion of a denied or ignored part is symptom conversion. The parts of George which generate the conflicting messages we understand to be inconsistent models of the world which he has not yet integrated.
2. Experience (receiver): The receiver is now faced with the task of understanding the communication presented by the communicator — a set of messages which do not match, do not fit together. Typically, the receiver will selectively pay attention to the messages arriving through one of his input channels and disregard the others. More accurately, in our experience, the receiver will be aware of the messages arriving in one of his input channels, while the remaining messages are received and
accepted outside of his awareness. Again, which messages the receiver is aware of is closely connected with his most used representational system. The important point here is that, when a receiver is presented with incongruent communication from the communicator, he represents all of the conflicting messages, some within his consciousness, some outside. If the receiver is aware that some of the messages conflict, he, typically, will consciously regard the communicator as insincere or deceitful. If the receiver is aware only of the messages which fit together — the messages which conflict being received and accepted at the unconscious level — then, typically, he will initially become uncomfortable, and, if he continues to receive incongruent communication, after some time he himself will become incongruent in his responses. This description contains the essential elements of the process by which children become incongruent — a natural learning from well-meaning parents. In addition, people who focus on the content rather than the process are vulnerable to incongruity. This process, by the way, is the basis for much of the discomfort experienced by people-helpers who are faced daily with the task of communicating with incongruent people with whom they are working. Some patterns of miscommunication — the processes by which family members create pain for themselves — show up in the systems created between therapists and those with whom they work. This is one of the reasons that therapists themselves frequently feel drained at the end of the day and sometimes have difficulties in their own lives.
3. Conclusion (receiver): Faced with the task of making meaning out of a conflicting set of messages, the receiver, typically, ends up having one of two experiences:
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