Family Systems and Counseling Flashcards

The Bowenian concept of 'emotional cutoff' describes:

Answer: The way people manage unresolved family attachment through physical or emotional distancing

Emotional cutoff refers to Bowen's concept of how people manage unresolved emotional attachment to their family of origin by distancing themselves physically or emotionally.

In Bowen's multigenerational transmission process, anxiety and levels of differentiation are:

Answer: Transmitted across generations through established patterns of emotional functioning

The multigenerational transmission process describes how varying levels of differentiation and emotional patterns are passed down through multiple generations of a family.

Strategic family therapy, associated with Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes, is primarily characterized by:

Answer: Using paradoxical directives and specific strategies to disrupt problem sequences

Strategic family therapy uses specific directives and paradoxical interventions to interrupt problematic behavioral sequences and produce rapid change.

In Olson's Circumplex Model of family functioning, which families demonstrate the best overall outcomes?

Answer: Balanced families with moderate levels of cohesion and flexibility

Olson's Circumplex Model identifies balanced families—those with moderate cohesion and adaptability—as demonstrating optimal functioning.

In attachment theory applied to family systems, a child with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style is most likely to:

Answer: Show intense distress at separation and difficulty being soothed upon the caregiver's return

Anxious-ambivalent attachment is characterized by intense distress at separation and difficulty settling when the caregiver returns, often resulting from inconsistent caregiving.

Paradoxical interventions in family therapy, such as 'prescribing the symptom,' work primarily by:

Answer: Placing the client in a therapeutic double bind that disrupts the problem's maintaining pattern

Paradoxical interventions create a therapeutic double bind in which both complying with and resisting the directive lead to therapeutic change.

John Gottman's research on couples identified which pattern as the strongest predictor of relationship dissolution?

Answer: The presence of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling ('Four Horsemen')

Gottman's research identified the 'Four Horsemen'—criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling—as highly predictive of relationship dissolution.