Family Systems Theory: Vignette II
Discussion of what's going on in this family

Claudia and Margaret had suffered violence at a young age and therefore, are prone to commit acts of aggression, with the chances of developing more symptomatology like anxiety, aggression, depression and low levels of self-esteem, as compared to those who led a violence-free childhood. Being victims of, and exposed to, family violence during childhood years can make Claudia and Margaret victims or offenders. Margaret was a victim of violence when she was young and resorted to aggression as the means to resolving conflicts in her relationships; her personality structure incorporates shame, anger and guilt. Claudia, also being victimized in childhood, cannot regulate her emotions, particularly anger, and exhibits more tolerance to adult intimate abuse. As they were both victimized or exposed to abuse, they not only display aggressive behaviors, but also possess ineffective ways of coping and weak communication…...

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References

Substance abuse and dependence within the gay/lesbian community. (2008). Retrieved April 8, 2015, from  http://www.hebpsy.net/articles.asp?id=1804 

Beatty, D.M. (2013).Effects of Exposure to Abuse and Violence in Childhood on Adult Attachment and Domestic Violence in Women's Same-Sex Relationships (Doctoral dissertation, Seton Hall University).

Kolko, D.J., Simonich, H., & Loiterstein, A. (2014). Alternatives for Families: A Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: An Overview and a Case Example. In Evidence-Based Approaches for the Treatment of Maltreated Children (pp. 187-212).Springer Netherlands.

Trepper, T.S., McCollum, E.E., De Jong, P., Korman, H., Gingerich, W., & Franklin, C. (2008). Solution focused therapy treatment manual for working with individuals research committee of the solution focused brief therapy association. Retrieved July, 23, 2008.

Family Interactions
The Harrison family in the 1998 film "Stepmom" consists of the father (Luke Harrison, played by Ed Harris), the ex-wife and mother (Jackie Harrison, played by Susan Sarandon), the daughter (Anna Harrison, played by Jena Malone), the son (Ben Harrison, played by Liam Aiken), and the soon-to-be stepmom (Isabel Kelly, played by Julia oberts). The children's natural mother and ex-wife becomes of aware that she has cancer, a number of therapies are tried, but finally everyone must face the fact that disease will end her life before long.

The parents of Anna and Ben have divorced, and their father's girlfriend, Isabel -- a single, successful professional photographer -- is living with them. Isabel's efforts to provide good mothering to the children is met at every turn by their resistance -- understandably, the children want their parents back together. Ganong, et al. (2011) identified six patterns of step-relationship development, including: "accepting…...

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References

1492 Pictures (Producer), & Chris Columbus (Director). (1998). Stepmom [Motion picture]. United States: TriStar Pictures and Columbia Pictures.

Cox, M.J. & Paley, B. (1997). Families as systems. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 243-267.

Deater-Deckard, K., Dunn, J. & Lussier, G. (2002). Sibling relationships and social-emotional adjustment in different family contexts. Social Development, 11(4).

Ganong, L.H., Coleman, M., & Jamison, T. (2011, April). Patterns of stepchild-stepparent relationship development. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73, 396-413. doi: 10.111/j.1741-3737.2010.00814.x.

Counselling Theories
Postmodern and Family System Theory Approach

There have been significant interest in research on the problems of addiction; hence, the many scientific studies on the issue. Many of the studies in this area end up with the same conclusions; the concept of addiction is complicated. The complexity partly arises from the effect it has on the drug abuser from different perspectives such as psychological, social, biological, and the impacts of addiction on social law, economics and politics. On the other hand, psychologists perceive drug addiction as a disease. From a religious worldview, addiction is a sin. Therefore, it is possible to view addiction from a medical, behavioral, and spiritual angle. As stated, the concept of addiction is complex, and there are many definitions of addiction reflecting the complexity of the phenomenon (Sremac, 2010).

Notably, all the definitions of addiction portray a negative judgment on addiction, but owing to the complexity of…...

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References

Caldwell, K., & Claxton, C. (2010). Teaching Family Systems Theory: A Developmental-

Constructivist Perspective. Contemporary Family Therapy, 32(1), 3-21.

Gruber, K.J., & Taylor, M.F. (2006). A Family Perspective for Substance Abuse: Implications

from the Literature. Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, 6(1), 1 -- 29.

Systems theory is actually used by some practitioners in domestic violence social work and counseling by being packed within the approach of "family system theory" (e.g. Nichols & Schwartz, 2005). This approach holds that the family is a holistic system where all parts are inextricably and holistically intertwined and each member of the family affects the other. The school and community -- outside systems -- too affect the family, and, in turn, the individual family members have an impact on these external systems. Believing that all causes and effects have reciprocal impact, systems theory also posits circular causality where not only are multiple causes the instigation of one problem, but oen problem may, in effect, eventuate in multiple causes. Domestic violence, for instance, of spouse attacking other spouse negatively impacts children, which leads to poor academic study, which my negatively impact teacher's rating, disturbing the school, and so forth. Other…...

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Family system theory, too avoids labeling behaviors as good and bad seeing them as factor of external elements (such as geography or time) that are, often, beyond individual's control and often beyond his or her awareness too. Taking this in mind enables the counselor to not only be more empathic and understanding of client but to also help detach the client from guilt regarding his activities and show him how to effectively reduce his negative behavior in a self-efficacious manner. By seeing the behavior as simply an action that has been learned and robotically repeated / reiterated through the generations, family system theory reuses to evaluate it and teaches the counselor / social worker and client to see it as a negative variable, through no fault of his own, that needs to be altered. Altering it will, in turn, not only make his own life and lives of those who are closest to him happier, but he will also positively impact the lives of countless effected others.

System theory, when applied to treatment of domestic violence, may be helpful too in that it treats not only first-order levels but provides understanding of, and probes underneath, to second-order levels too. First order levels refer to the situation where surface behavior may be changed but the underlying attitude remains unaltered (Nichols & Schwartz, 2005). The perpetrator, for instance, may learn new communication skills but the influence of his cultural internalizations regarding supposed inferiority of the female remains unchanged. System theory, on the other hand, may help the client realize the root of his perspectives and, by so doing, have a greater and more enduring impact on him. This would consequent in a second-order change where the underlying rationale is addressed leading to male and partner affecting a healthier relationship.

It is in this way that I see systems theory as contributing powerfully to amelioration of domestic violence.

Systems Theory
Napier & Whitaker's (1978) classic The Family Crucible is the benchmark book related to family therapy. The book is thorough, and divided into twenty chapters that cover the gamut of family therapy theory and especially practice. Napier & Whitaker (1978) are family systems theorists, and they openly divulge their appreciation for an approach to individual psychology that takes into account family systems. In other words, no individual can be understood or helped without paying attention to the family situation, its dynamics, and its role in identity formation and coping. The authors discuss dysfunctional family systems via a case study. By focusing on one case study, Napier & Whitaker (1978) show how family systems theory works, and what clients can expect from the process.

The authors weave their personal views and experiences throughout the case study, which clutters and bogs down the narrative, but which also provides a necessary context for…...

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References

Napier, A.Y. & Whitaker, C. (1978). The Family Crucible. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Its business alliances have succeeded because of the past encounter and uncompromising principles of Starbucks. When Starbucks created a licensing contract with Kraft Foods, Inc., it permitted Kraft Foods to begin to make Starbucks' items available in grocery markets, and now because of that attempt their items are available all over Northern U.S. And even the United Kingdom. If Starbucks did not have the primary features of what it is looking for in an alliance, it might not have been as effective in its collaboration with Kraft Foods or any other partner. Starbucks was willing to think about the good and bad in the possible collaboration and choose on whether or not the collaboration would benefit its organization (Davidson & Fielden, 2013). If Kraft Foods, Inc. did not have the same corporate perspective and objectives that Starbucks had, Starbucks would not have engaged in business with them. Starbucks has…...

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References

Beer, S. (2014). Diagnosing the system for organizations. New York, NY: Wiley.

Harrison, M. (2004). Diagnosing Organizations: Methods, Models, and Processes (Applied Social Research Methods) (3rd ed.). Berlin: Sage Publications.

Davidson, M., & Fielden, S.L. (2013). Individual diversity and psychology in organizations. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

Smith-Acuna, S. (2010). Systems Theory in Action: Applications to Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy. John Wiley & Sons

Systems Theory makes several assumptions that are useful for understanding the 14-year-old's behavior:

The state or condition of a system, at any one point in time, is a function of the interaction between it and the environment in which it operates." (Longres, 1999, p. 19)

Change and conflict are always evident in a system. Individuals both influence their environments and are influenced by them. Processes of mutual influence generate change and development." (Longres, 1990, p. 19)

Each person in a family is part of the whole system. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts." (Longres, 1990, p. 266)

These assumptions make us understand that the responsibility for the acts of the 14-year-old rest not with the child himself, but with the relationships and interactions in his family. More than anything else, the real issue is a family boundary problem where the hierarchical subsystem had not had a chance to teach the…...

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Works Cited

Brother Arrested in Slaying of Girl, 4." Washington Post 20. Sept., 2004: B-1

Longres, John F. Human Behavior in the Social Environment. Itasca, IL F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc., 1990

Teen Appears in DC Court In Slaying of Sister, 4." Washington Post 21 Sept. 2004: B-3

Family
Age Students With Learning Disabilities

The impact of family motivation on college age students with learning disabilities may be a deciding factor in regard to the student's success or failure. College age students with learning disabilities obviously have more immediate needs in cooperative learning settings when compared to typical students. Educators cannot just tell the student to just sit-down and read five chapters of Freud. These students have problems like dyslexia, AD/HD, or English as a second language to name a few and they may have had additional help in the past that may not be available at an older age. When there are obvious underlying issues, the family, teachers and the students themselves have to work more closely together in order to reach the desired positive outcomes. "Teaching effectiveness is inferred from the product that was created; it is the product that is the indicator of scholarship." (Cranton, 2000)

This report…...

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Positive feedback is a major part of the Family Systems Theory process. Feedback in this case is a process in which the family, and possibly the teaching team involved, all work together to regulate the thinking process of the college age student with learning disabilities. This process also incorporates the notion that positive self-talk by the college age student with some form of learning disability is a necessary component of educational success. Self-talk helps them monitor their own output. In other words, the human body in this case accepts feedback from both internal and external sources to promote positive goals and objectives. A good example of a positive feedback system is how an automatic pilot system is used in most commercial airplanes. The automatic pilot process provides a computer that is actually flying the plane constant feedback about required information regarding the planes speed, altitude, direction and so on. As the plane drifts off course slightly, the computer system realigns the flight path. The college age student with a learning disability also drifts off occurs from time to time and positive feedback from family members, teachers and counselors and the student themselves all help to get the student back on course. This approach continually promotes active coping efforts and attributes positive meaning to the learning situation.

Name of Theory: FAMILY STRESS & COPING THEORY

Based on Family Stress Theory, there can be many indicators of a family's adaptation to stress induced events. "One is the adaptation of individual family members, including adolescents have noted that such factors as the perceived levels of individual and family stress serve as markers of adaptation." (McCubbin, 1993) In other words, the adaptation implies that there are a large number

family by applying theories, concepts and knowledge. Through the study of the theories and concepts, the study will look at how families communicate, behave, operate and will also highlight common problems facing the family and especially tackling the health issue and how social systems affect provision of health care, and will illuminate this through an in-depth study of how it applies or affect the family unit. The study will discuss diversity issues in relation to the social system.
Family life is being scrutinized, and a new definition of a family is emerging every day, but in simple terms a family is a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household, caring and supporting each other. According to Merriam-ebster Dictionary; a family is a fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents and their children.

The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of…...

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Works Cited

Boss P. Doherty W. LaRossa R. (2008). Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A contextual Approach, New York: Springer

Crawford, (1999), Bilingual Education: History Politics, Theory and Practice, 23 July 2011, nation.org/Crawford.htmlhttp://www.one

LaRossa & Reitzes. (1993). Family Theory, Washington D.C: Chapman Publishers

McGoldrick M, Gerson R. & Shellenberger S. (1985). Genograms in Family Assessment. W.W. Norton: North America

Family CounselingFamily therapy systems adopt systems thinking approach in which the family is viewed as an emotional unit. Through this approach, family therapy systems conceptualize psychosocial symptoms of individuals within families. There are various family therapy theories that can be applied to different situations as part of family therapy systems to address individuals psychosocial symptoms. One theory that can be used to conceptualize the psychosocial symptoms of individuals within families based on the Wilsons case is Bowens family system theory. This theory suggests that people are attached to their network of relationships within the family (Brown, 2014). By portraying how people are inseparable from their network of relationships, this theory suggests that changes in the behaviors of one family member could affect family functioning over time. In relation to Wilsons case, this theory can be used in the conceptualization of family issues through examining the network of relationships between them.…...

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ReferencesBrown, J. (2014). Bowen Family Systems Theory and practice: Illustration and critique. Retrieved May 20, 2021, from   J. (2014). An application of Bowen Family Systems Theory. Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 35(11), 835-841. https://www.thefsi.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Bowen-Family-Systems-Theory-and-Practice_Illustration-and-Critique.pdf Haefner,

Murray Bowen developed a theory of family functioning and individual functioning within the family system. The Bowen theory most importantly takes into account the need to balance individuality with togetherness in tight social systems like families ("Bowenian Family Therapy," n.d.). There are eight basic concepts to the Bowen theory. The first is the differentiation of self, which is important for psychological health and well-being. An example of differentiation of self is when the person is able to hold a different opinion on a political or social issue than a parent without that difference causing a problem in the relationship. When the self is not differentiated, the person might have internalized the beliefs of mother, father, sister, or brother and cannot tell what is really "me" versus what is a result of programming, the desire for approval or absorbing others' beliefs.
The second concept to Bowen's theory is triangulation. Bowen believes that…...

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References

"Bowenian Family Therapy," (n.d.). Retrieved online:  http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/counseling/bowen.html 

Vermont Center for Family Studies (n.d). What are the eight interlocking concepts of Bowen Family Systems Theory? Retrieved online:  http://www.vermontcenterforfamilystudies.org/about_vcfs/the_eight_concepts_of_bowen_theory/

Family Systems Theory; Application of Family Therapy Theories
The concept of family therapy has over the years has been developed into different approaches that have definite characteristics. These theories have been used to bring forth solutions to different family issues that are experienced on regular basis. It is not easy to understand the structure of a family since there are no universal structures that the family problems or challenges take, this means that even in the application of the family systems theories in bringing solutions to families, the application purely depend on individual unique family challenges and not on a universal template. These unique characteristics that each family challenge takes makes it hard to apply one system theory and have full confidence that it will work, hence the frequent overlapping of the theories, and in this case the strategic family therapy and the structural family therapy will be applied to help…...

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Reference

Nichols M.P., (2009). Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods.

Family of Origin
The origin of the family describes the family in which one is grown up, inter-family interactions and relations between one's parents', siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The current study examines the origin of a family and determines the systematic research based on the behavior and relation of members and provides evidence-based practices in order to address the relational gap found among the family members.

Systematic Analysis

Family Hierarchy

Family Subsystem

Attachment Styles in Family

Family Boundaries

Family Adaptability

Thematic esearch

Early Marriage and Divorce

Evidence-Based esearch and Intervention

Genogram

The family in which one is grown up with the collaboration of adult's economic contribution and influence from parents, siblings and grandparents collectively describes one's family of origin. The origin of one's family tends to effect the systems that are being followed in the family and describes the degree to which they can be adaptive in nature. However the family is considered to possess a central role in the…...

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REFERENCES

Bramlett, M.D., & Mosher, W.D. (2001).First marriage dissolution, divorce, and remarriage.In National Center for Health Statistics.

Carr, A. (1999). Evidence-based practice in psychotherapy and counseling. Journal of the Irish Association of Counseling and Therapy, 2(9), 15-34.

Dattilio, F.M. (2005). Introduction to the special section: The role of cognitive -- behavioral interventions in couple and family therapy. Journal of marital and family therapy, 31(1), 7-13.

Engels, F. (1942).The origin of the family.Current Book Distributors.

Devel/Family Cycle Theory
Successful completion of developmental tasks enables a person to make a smooth transition to adulthood. According to family life cycle theory (FLC), a paradigm rooted in the ideas of Duvall and Hill, there are eight stages of development with normative age role expectations for the nuclear family (Hill, 1970; Hill & ogers, 1964; ice, 1994; all cited in Erickson, 1998). More recent work on FLC by McGoldrick and Carter offer a new set of stages that they believe describe the fundamental American middle-class family at the beginning of the 21st century (VanKatwyk). According to McGoldrick and Carter, the family life cycle refers to "the expansion, contraction, and realighnemt of the relationship system to support the entry, exit, and development of family members in a functional way" (2003, p. 384, cited in Erickson). Their six stage classification lists the following:

Leaving home: single young adults

The joining of families through marriage:…...

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References

Erickson, M.J. (1998). Revisioning the family life cycle theory and paradigm in marriage and Family. American Journal of Family Therapy 26(4), pp. 341-355.

Jordyn, M., & Byrd, M. (2003). The relationship between the living arrangements of university students and their identity development. Adolescence 38(150), pp. 267-278.

VanKatwyk, P.L. (n.d.). Family life cycle theory. Theories of Human Development. Retrieved from http://freedownload.is/pdf/family-life-cycle-theory-3553375.html

Experiential Family Therapy (EFT) is the central place of humanistic therapies and psychology. This therapy includes the works of Fritz Perls, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow, along with the communication theories and family systems of Paul Watzlavick, Don Jackson, and Gregory ateson. It is called a meeting place for all the theorists because clearly the experiential family therapy includes multiple systems used for therapy. The authors ecvar & evcar (2006) like to call these 'experimental approaches to family therapy' instead of 'experimental models'. Virginia Satir, one of the main predecessors of the experiential approach, is also considered to be part of communication approaches as well as experiential (Lester, 2009).
The family tree of the family system has three main parts: (1) the Communications approach of Virginia Satir; (2) the Gestalt experiential approach of Walter Kempler; and (3) the Symbolic experiential approach of Carl Whitaker (ecvar & ecvar, 2006). However, the focus…...

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Bibliography

Becvar, D.S. & Becvar, R.J. (2006). Family therapy: A systemic integration. Boston, MA: Pearson

Broderick, P., & Weston, C. (2009). Family Therapy with a Depressed Adolescent. NCBI, 32-37. Retrieved from:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719446/ 

Greenburg, L.S., Watson, J.C., & Lietaer, G. (1998). Handbook of experiential psychotherapy. New York: Guilford

Israelstam, K. (1988). Contrasting four major family therapy paradigms: implications for family therapy training. Journal of Family Therapy, 179-196.