Theories for Direct Social Work Practice

by Joseph Walsh

stressed the importance of family constellations (including birth order and sibling rivalry)...

Harry Stack Sullivan, a mento...

argued that people were the products of their relatively enduring patterns of in...

his interpersonal theory of schizophrenia (Sullivan, 1962) was based on the nature...

Bowen’s other influence was general sy...

circular caus...

all elements of a system simultaneously a...

The new field of cybernetics focused on the analysis of the flow of information in electronic, mechanical, and biological systems

all parts of a system are interconnected,

and changes in one part will influence the functioning of all other parts.

wholeness, the idea that any phenomenon can be understood only by viewin...

a system’s behavior affects its external...

and

that environment affects t...

Bowen concluded that the type of family anxiety that results in one member’s developing schizophrenia required three generations to unfold.

The Multigenerational Perspective

individual personalities and patterns of interaction among family members have their origins in previous generations.

Bowen recommended a three-generation assessment of families, partly because of realistic limits on the availability of information, and also because of his early career work with f...

The social worker does not need information about three generations to effectively provide family interventions. Family structures are more diverse and fragmented today

Differentiation of Self

This is a key concept in family systems theory that has two meanings.

First, it represents a person’s capacity to distinguish between and balance his or her thinking and feeling selves. Both as...

The“total”human experience involves both emotion and reason. While Bowen advocated for a balance of reason and emotion, he thought this was really not an attainable condition because emotional feeling, unlike intellect, was a pervasive life force.

The term differentiation also refers to the ability of an individual to physically

differentiate from his or her family of origin in a manner that preserves aspects of those emotional ties while...

Differentiation is thus a characteristic not of a person, but...

more differentiated persons experience more intimate relationships...

Higher levels of differentiation even have an effect on one’s response ...

The price of intimacy in any relationship is the experience of occasional conflict.

People cannot exist in harmony all the time.

When in conflict, people usually rely on ...

(or different third persons, depending on the circumstances) for mediation, ventilation, or ...

Problematic triangulation in families occurs when conflicted adults draw in weaker family members, often the children, to maintain the stability of their relationship.

Anxiety is an unpleasant but normal and functional affect that provides people with warning signs for perceived threats (Marks, 1987).

Anxiety becomes pro...

anxiety is central to psychodyna...

The nuclear family emotional system includes four relationship patterns that may foster problem development (G...

With marital conflict, each spouse projects his or her anxiety onto the other and attemp...

If one or more children exhibit a physical or emotional functional impairment, the parents will focus their anxieties on that child, who in turn ...

With emotional fusion, family members distance themselves from one another t...

psychological tension for any of the above reasons may produce an atmosphere of anxiety that...

An individual who is not differentiated experiences relatively high levels of tension in family relationships and will tend to be drawn to friends, spouses, a...

one study concluded that anxiety is the best predictor of differentiation of self, emotional reactivity, and em...

Parents often use the projection defense with their children as “targets”because children are vulnerable family members.

Children tend to accept and internalize the pronouncements, insights, and beliefs of their parents. Within family systems, children may suffer if the parents project negative feelings and ideas onto them.

In family systems theory, parental projection is a major source of transm...

While emotional cutoffs may be natural and healthy, emotional fusion is the oppo...

The person does not “think,”but“feels,”and does so in response to the emotional state of the other person. The feelings of the mother, ...

When she is happy, he is happy, and when she is ...

People tend not to have insight into the fact that they are fused, but they experience high levels of emotional...