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.
19
This phenomenon, in which changes occur in areas of behavior not expressly dealt with in the therapeutic session, is discussed in