hi guys welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome to my channel my name is stephanie yates i'm your builder stephania for short and i'm a licensed associate marriage and family therapist this channel is for fellow therapists those who are in the process of becoming therapist and those who just want to use therapy inside to create their best life in today's video we'll be going over contextual family therapy if you're curious about what that is stay tuned [Music] so first as usual i want to thank everyone who has been giving me suggestions for
models contextual family therapy has come up a lot so i'm just going to put a lot of those requests up on the screen so thank you all so much for letting me know what you're wanting for me i could go any direction with these models so it's really really good to know the ones that you find to be the most useful please feel free to let me know what other models you'd like me to cover in the comments below but make sure first to check out my playlist on models to make sure that it's not
for a model that i've actually already done i've done a few already so always make sure you're staying up to date on that model playlist before you request another one all right so let's jump right into contextual family therapy so i want to first say that there's a good chance i'm going to mispronounce the founder's name yvonne bosnia mini naji and i probably got that totally wrong is a hungarian psychiatrist he's considered one of the founders of family therapy he moved to the u.s in the 1950s and like i always talk about when we talk
about traditional or classic models emerging family therapy 50s early 60s that's when we saw a lot of models emerging and the family therapy movement really being established his contribution to marriage and family therapy is through the contextual family therapy model what we're going to do today is go through the key concepts of contextual family therapy how they view the problem we're going to go through the interventions or techniques used in this model and ultimately the goals of therapy with contextual therapy let's jump right in the first thing to remember with contextual family therapy is that
it is considered a multi-generational model or transgenerational model meaning that there is an understanding that whatever characteristics or symptoms the family is experiencing was likely passed down through multiple generations whenever i do these reviews i want to first let you all know the different words buzzwords concepts to look for if you're taking the exam especially so that you can identify okay this question is a contextual question or this question is a structural family question another concept that is very unique to contextual family therapy is the idea of relational ethics and what that really means is
how fair and how just are we in our interpersonal relationships particularly within the family and that idea of having fairness and justice within a relationship is really the foundation for the contextual model if you keep that in mind as we go through these sections each section will make a lot more sense what does being fair and just in a family look like it's really being considerate of how decisions impact everyone as a whole it's about not being completely focused on self but also knowing that your family is considerate of you as well so being fair
and just and trustworthy within a family is the emphasis within this model so let's move into a key concept with contextual family therapy the four dimensions of relational realities so the first dimension are the facts things like a person's age their gender socioeconomic status race those are the facts of any given family the next layer is the individual psychology of each member of the family so thinking about the inner workings thoughts emotions feelings for any given member of the family and keep in mind when we talk about these original family therapy models they were all
typically targeted at working with the whole family are at least more than one member of the family as we move into some of the later models you know you're using systemic concepts but they are easily applicable to individuals these models can be applied to individuals as well but they were really designed with the whole family in mind to create a bigger separation between traditional psychology and family therapy which was still emerging the next layer when you're working with the family is looking at the transactional patterns and that is how do each of these people interact
with one another so sister and brother might have a certain dynamic that greatly differs from sister and dad so paying attention to the transactional patterns is another important thing for a therapist to focus on if they are utilizing contextual family therapy and the last thing what we talked about earlier is paying attention to the relational ethics so how fair are the family dynamics do you have a person for example who has sacrificed all of their passions loves pleasures in order to help the family or help an individual in the family this is where a lot
of attention is focused for contextual family therapy is looking at those relational ethics how much balance of give and take is there amongst this family and the belief within this model is that all four of those things happen simultaneously all of these contribute to the health of relationships the facts the individual psychology the transactional patterns and relational ethics are always simultaneously impacting the health of any given relationship so now let's dive deeper into relational ethics baser minions approach to looking at relational ethics was based in what he referred to as a ledger and i personally
loved this metaphor or imagery of thinking of an actual ledger that's what really made this model concrete for me when i was learning it in graduate school and focusing on it when i was studying for my exam so this unconscious balance sheet it's made up of credits and debits as you would with any ledger but those credits and debits instead of it being money think of it as entitlements and obligations this is how aatbs explained it and it really helped me understand it better this is where we see that the model is a transgenerational model
because when individuals experience fairness in their relationships growing up with their family everyone considers everyone's opinions and needs they're there for each other they're reliable they're dependable then you carry that same expectation into your future relationships but when we have experiences for example where maybe we were neglected by our parents as kids we might expect our partners in our relationships when we get older to compensate for that neglect and we put unbearable expectations on them to really love us in a way that we didn't feel loved before and we don't have any experience with what
that love is actually like so our expectations of them are often unrealistic and really difficult to navigate so this is how we see this being a transgenerational model is because that ledger if you feel that you were owed attention as a child which you absolutely were and you didn't get that attention and the next generation you might want your spouse or maybe even your kids to make that up for you and so it happens the same way within the family if you for example are a wife who has sacrificed your passions and your job for
the family and then you have children who might not seem as grateful to you as you would like them to be you may take it out on the children or take it out on your spouse because you feel your own that resentment you're owed that anger with everything you sacrificed so when we talk about that ledger of entitlements and obligations that's what we're talking about how is everyone considered in the family if not how does that lack of justice impact the family dynamic that is one of the most important things to pay attention to for
a contextual therapist the next important concept to think about is loyalties and legacies with contextual therapy the idea of loyalties and legacies can be very powerful and bring families together but it can also be very toxic and tear families apart so a legacy for example we think of it as something that you learn and you pass down right or you create and you pass down so if you have the expectation for example maybe you had siblings that bullied you growing up and nothing was said about it then maybe you have the expectation that people suffer
in silence or suffer alone and you pass down that expectation that people are cruel or that people should not be defended for example so that's an example of a legacy where we can see how that could negatively impact a person's life and well-being but maybe if you had parents who always stood up for you and affirmed you then you have the expectation that that's a parent's job and when you have your children it's always important to you to listen to them and to affirm them that's a positive legacy now let's talk about loyalties loyalty as
we know it represents our commitment to others especially the people that we're close to and loyalty is something that we definitely in popular culture think of as a positive thing however in contextual therapy it's one thing you want to pay attention to because if loyalty is unconscious and it influences our behaviors sometimes it can actually get in the way of progress and growth let's say that you have an invisible loyalty to a parent who is let's say an alcoholic for example and the child has always learned that because you're loyal to your family you don't
tell people at school you don't tell people about this problem at home that could prevent that parent from ultimately maybe getting the help that they need or get the child out of a dangerous situation so that's an example where an invisible loyalty can get in the way of us growing and making progress because what ends up happening is that we are reluctant to look for new options or explore other options because we're feeling loyalty to something that could be possibly hazardous to us whether that be physically emotionally mentally relationally it could be hazardous and we're
not addressing it head-on because of invisible loyalties and that's just one example but can you think of another example of invisible loyalties that could really get in the way that maybe you've even experienced in your own life so the last concept we're going to talk about is entitlement an entitlement is something that i think is relatively negatively connotated when we think about it in society but it can be positive you know from birth children are entitled to being taken care of right you can't speak up for yourself you can't feed yourself and so when those
basic needs are met that we are entitled to it can really help us be able to take on our responsibilities and obligations for others again we see that transgenerationally right you might want to make sure you provide your child with the same level of care that you receive that was great right however we can see destructive entitlement when those things that we feel entitled to are not met and when those things are not met a lot of times we look to either return the favor to the people who wronged us or even worse to innocent
people who weren't involved like our kids or our partner or our grandkids and so that destructive entitlement can really also get in the way of healthy relationships and this sounds very similar to legacies and loyalties that we just talked about the main difference with entitlement is that the person feels a certain justification in those problematic behaviors okay you're abusive to your kid because your parents were abusive to you and i turned out fine or i had to deal with it they can deal with it and we see that a lot one of the most common
ways i see that is when you have families that came through poverty right maybe a couple of generations ago the family could not survive on a single income so maybe both parents had to work and then the kids had to work as well and through moving up the social ladder that family has actually been able to ascertain enough resources where that next generation maybe they could have the option of going to college or focusing exclusively on their high school work and not having to work but the parent feels like okay well i worked when i
was in school so my kids should have to work too right it's almost a paying it off there's a resentment there's justification there where the kid is basically feeling the impact of the parent's own resentment from what they had to experience when they were growing up and they feel justified in making that decision because they feel like it may create the person i am today but it might create unnecessary pressure and stress on your children which prevents them from being able to excel even more because they didn't have to worry and have those same pressures
and stressors that their parents did that's an example that i see all the time where we can very clearly see that that destructive entitlement could actually hinder the family now the very same choice could be an example of constructive entitlement if you truly feel that working being out in the world helped you develop as a person and you feel that your child deserves that same opportunity to build it's all about intention and outcome right so the very exact same situation could be constructive entitlement but that's an example where more often than not i see it
becoming destructive entitlement because the parents are actually responding from anger from what they've had to deal with at their child's age and feeling that their child has it too easy the way that the problem or maladaptive behavior is viewed in contextual family therapy is pretty simple it's about fairness so if we're seeing a lack of justice fairness trust within a family then that's going to lead to dysfunctional patterns and behaviors so that's the view of the problem so therapy goals really it boils down to accountability saying okay it looks like your child the first maybe
five ten years of their life you weren't very involved can you accept that that impacted them and what would you be willing to do to help make up for some of that lost time for example that is something that you could look at so the goal with contextual therapy is rebalancing that ledger by encouraging family members to take accountability for the areas or maybe they've taken a bit more than they've given now let's talk about the process let's talk about techniques and interventions so the first thing to think about is that whenever a therapist is
practicing contextual family therapy you always always always want to consider at least three generations worth of family members now that doesn't mean you have to have all three generations in the room but if you have a parent and child for example you should definitely be asking the parent questions about their relationship with their parents growing up and even further back if you can because it gives a lot of insight into the dysfunction that is manifesting today contextual therapy is not branded as a brief model it could take weeks it could take years really the family
makes the decision about when they feel comfortable ending therapy and that's going to be a decision hopefully based on them feeling that they're able to consistently expect and receive fairness justice trust within the family consistently and so once they feel that they are at a point where they all can be held accountable they know what they can do to help each family member feel okay and they say okay we we don't really feel like we need services anymore that is when therapy comes to a close so you want to focus therapy on helping assess each
family member's needs what do they need more of what do they need less of and seeing who is willing to be responsible for that who do they need to be responsible for that contextual therapy is not about exaggerating problems it's about helping to find where are the gaps and how can we fill those gaps in the therapist should practice multi-directed partiality and what that means is that the therapist takes the perspective of each client in the room so opposed to some of the other traditional models we've talked about like structural family therapy or strategic family
therapy or even bowenian where a lot of times they're going to encourage you to either side with the parents you know you want to help the parents establish some authority at the top of the hierarchy or in bohemian's case where he suggests you work with the most differentiated family member what basra minions is recommending is that you try to understand each family member's perspective maybe sometimes you speak on their behalf and ask is that what you were saying give the family an opportunity to respond and do the same with another family member so you want
to feel like each family member's ally which can be hard to accomplish but is really important for accurately being able to assess each family member's needs how can you do that one of the main techniques or concepts in this model is to practice empathy you want to be able to understand each family member's pain and the most important thing to remember when you're doing that just knowing from my work with clients is that sometimes we can become so empathetic towards one family member that we lose empathy for another but recognizing that both people are hurting
in some way and trying to figure out how they can work together to help alleviate some of that hurt is very critical so practicing empathy with each family member trying to see where you connect and understand their perspective is really critical with this model another technique is crediting and this is where the therapist pretty much validates each family member's experience so a lot of times what will happen when you have a family member who complains about some experience in the family or they're heard about something in order to deal or alleviate guilt family members will
reject that experience for them they'll say that's not how it happened you're over exaggerating did that really make you feel like that oh you're just showing out for the therapist these are all things that i have heard right instead of joining again and asking like so do you not think that's true the therapist's first job is to credit them and say wow it really sounds like what you needed was this and that wasn't provided to you and it might make other family members upset but their turn will come where they get the same technique or
treatment so making sure that you validate each person's experience of unfairness is really important the next technique is acknowledgment of effort this model is credited as being a really positive model where the therapist is really trying to focus on creating a positive culture within the family because typically if you've got that unbalanced ledger there's going to be a lot of blaming a lot of criticizing a lot of resentment the therapist is really working overtime to help make those family members feel more positive and so acknowledging the effort of individual family members what they've already been
doing in the relationship maybe you say to a parent who's had a drug addiction i really commend you on not allowing substances to get in the way of your connection with your family now we just need to work on making up for lost time so helping each family member recognize what they've already done so they feel motivated in that work and also helping the other family members see that each person is trying their best now let's see if we can raise the bar for what their best looks like and lastly as we've already talked about
accountability you want to make sure that each family member is aware of their role in another family member's hurt or pain acknowledging accepting and having them validate another person's experience is a great way to help bring some understanding and more balance to the family ledger some other techniques one that i really love is exoneration and that is really understanding especially for previous generation i talked about exoneration in a video i did on toxic family members um talking about my own personal experience with exoneration and that really is about thinking about those previous generations in context
thinking about what your parents or grandparents went through and their experiences that led to how you were treated so understanding the intergenerational patterns that have contributed to another family members harmful or toxic behavior can be freeing both for the person who behave that way and the person who experienced the behavior and the last technique i'll talk about is lending weight and this is where you might have a family member having a hard time articulating their experience and the therapist then kind of weighs in and will try to communicate for the child and ask them if
they are getting it right you could simplify what they're saying with yes or no questions you might use circular questioning other techniques to help the child or whomever is having a difficult time articulating their feelings you help them be able to get their point across and make sure that everyone else in the room understands what they're saying as well so that is the end of our contextual family therapy review i hope that you found that useful a lot of you have been asking for this review this is not a model that i really practice regularly
but as soon as i actually grasp the concept i absolutely love this model i love the idea of the ledger and i really love the emphasis on accountability i'm curious what do you think about contextual family therapy do you think of some clients that it could work with for you or can you identify as a person in a family that may have an unbalanced ledger let me know in the comments below i love connecting with you guys again my name is stephanie it's stephanie for short ask that you like this video subscribe to my channel
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