Which of the patterns of coping which the family arid its members present to the therapist can best serve as resources to create an environment for growth and change — whether or not the family members regard these process patterns as resources in the beginning? To create an effective model experience, the therapist needs to understand both the direction of change and the currently available resources of the people with whom he is working.
The third characteristic of creative, effective family therapy occurs during this phase when the therapist is working with the family members to prepare them to actively participate in creating the model experience. The act of participating in originating this experience will require that the family members act in ways which are different from the ones they have been using in the past. In other words, they will be taking risks. There are several specific ways in which the therapist can systematically assist the family members in making these revisions. First, the therapist works to build up the family members' trust in him as an agent of change. The therapist acts as a model of congruency by communicating congruently himself — all of the messages which he presents must match. The way in which he moves must match the sound of his voice, which matches the words which he uses, which match .... In addition, the therapist must be alert to identify each family member's most used representational system. When he has determined this, he can increase the confidence of each family member in him by shifting his own process words (predicates) to the representational system of the person to whom he is speaking. Even more effective than simply shifting his process words (predicates) to those of the family member with whom he is communicating, is for the highly skilled family therapist to vary the emphasis which he places on the types of communication systems which he selects to use with a particular family member. For example, with a family member whose most used representational system is visual, the deft therapist will communicate by using his body, hand and arm movements — any set of signals which the family member can see. With a family member whose primary system is kinesthetic, the therapist will make frequent physical contact, touching to communicate or emphasize certain points he wants to be sure the family member understands. The therapist uses his skills in communication both to set an example and to make explicit the process of effective communication. So, for example, when a family member presents the therapist with a verbal communication with a deletion which renders it unintelligible, the therapist requests the missing information rather than hallucinating what it might be. Or, if a family member is Mind Reading or communicating incongruently, the therapist may gracefully comment on it — demonstrating both the importance of the freedom to comment and the equal importance of clear communication to other family members. As he communicates, the therapist leaves space for the family members to respond, using polite commands (conversational postulates) and embedded questions. He shows that he values the family members' abilities to understand and participate in the ongoing process by inviting them to comment on exchanges between himself and another family member. By these techniques, he makes individual contact with each family member to develop their confidence in the therapist's skill as a communicator and as an agent of change.
The second major way in which the therapist acts to help the family members prepare for change is to share with the family member the information which he has gathered, smoothly using his communication skills to do this. Typically, the family members begin with a statement of what they want for themselves and their family; this statement invariably includes a nominalization. As the therapist gathers information, he is de-nominalizing; that is, he is turning the representation of an event into a process. One of the things which happen as he does this, and shares the information with the family members, is that the way the family got to the place where they are now is seen as a series of steps of a process. By coming to appreciate their own family history as an understandable, step-by-step process, the family members can have hopes about there being a next step in the process which will allow them to make the changes which they desire. The therapist
does not, of course, attempt to insure that each family member has the understanding which is his — his task is not to train family therapists. Neither does he keep relevant information from the family. Rather, using his skills as a communicator, the therapist presents to the family members the information each needs to understand that change is possible. As he shares his information about the process of communication in the family, the therapist describes what he experiences — he does not evaluate or make judgments about it. This distinction between the description of the process and the evaluation of other people's behavior is, in itself, an important learning tool for the family members.
One of the outcomes of the therapist's skillful use of representational systems, congruency and sharing of information with all family members, is that the family members come to understand and trust one another. We find it very rewarding when we are able, through our communication skills, to help one family member come to fully understand that another family member is not being malicious, or evil, or crazy when he does not understand the first member's communication, but, rather, that their communications are simply not making a connection with one another, as each is paying attention to a different part of their shared experience.
Contrary to what many people expect, difference itself can become an opportunity for growth; it contains the seeds of excitement and interest, and the challenge of new learning when guided in that direction. Difference can also, of course, be used negatively; then, sameness can be made a cementing factor. Both sameness and difference are essential, for they manifest the uniqueness of each human being. Much of the therapist's task is to balance these two qualities and, specifically, to use his skills to help the family members to convert the differences which previously caused them pain into an occasion for learning and growth.
When the therapist works with the family to help them to understand the process steps by which they got into their present situation, and teaches them the difference between descriptive and judgmental language, the family often discovers a crippling episode from the past, usually based on miscommunication. This encounter can be used to help them learn that any human experience from the past can be uncovered, understood and utilized.
The result of the processes of developing each family member's trust in the therapist as an agent of change and the therapist's sharing of the information with the family is that the family members become willing to take risks, to venture into unknown territory, and to attempt to build new bridges within the family. By carefully preparing the family members during Phase I, the therapist is able to engage the hopes, energy and creative participation of the family members in developing an experience which will serve as a model for them in their future growth.
Determining the Desired State
The presence of a family in a therapy session is a statement by that family that their present state — their present ways of coping, communicating and interacting — is unsatisfactory to them. It is a statement that the family recognizes, at some level, that there is a discrepancy between what their present experience as a family is and what they want for themselves. The typical case in our experience is the one characterized by the family arriving for the initial therapy session, each member having some idea of what it is that he wants to change. The initial focus of the therapist is to find out what those changes are. The simplest, and a very effective, way of doing this is for the therapist to introduce himself to each of the family members and to ask them what it is, specifically, that they want for themselves as individuals and for their family. This process is a model presented to the family to assist them in learning to make meaning congruently. The therapist understands that, while the content — the specific hopes of this particular family — is important, the way he secures this information, the powerful process of communication, is taking place at the unconscious level, with himself as the model.