FAMILY THERAPY - DEAN AMORY

Culture as Context
Bronfenbrenner also suggested that families, peers, and neighborhoods exist within a wider cultural context
that influences the family and its individual members. Extensive research on culture and the family has
demonstrated that the family and the child are influenced by their cultural contexts (Santisteban et al. 2003;
Szapocznik and Kurtines 1993). Much of the researchers' work has examined the ways in which minority
families' values and behaviors have an impact on the relationship between parents and children and affect
adolescents' involvement with drug abuse and its associated problems (Santisteban et al. 2003; Szapocznik
and Kurtines 1980, 1993; Szapocznik et al. 1978).
Counseling as Context
The counseling situation itself is a context that is associated with a set of rules, expectations, and
experiences. The cultures of the client (i.e., the family), the counselor, the agency, and the funding source
can all affect the nature of counseling as can the client's feelings about how responsive the "system" is to his
or her needs.
Systems
Systems are a special case of context. A system is made up of parts that are interdependent and interrelated.
Families are systems that are made up of individuals (parts) who are responsive (interrelated) to each other's
behaviors.
A Whole Organism
"Systems" implies that the family must be viewed as a whole organism. In other words, it is much more than
merely the sum of the individuals or groups that it comprises. During the many years that a family is
together, family members develop habitual patterns of behavior after having repeated them thousands of
times. In this way, each individual member has become accustomed to act, react, and respond in a specific
manner within the family. Each member's actions elicit a certain reaction from another family member over
and over again over time. These repetitive sequences give the family its own form and style.
The patterns that develop in a family actually shape the behaviors and styles of each of its members. Each
family member has become accustomed to behaving in certain ways in the family. Basically, as one family
member develops certain behaviors, such as a responsible, take-control style, this shapes other family
members' behaviors. For example, family members may allow the responsible member to handle logistics.
At the same time, the rest of the family members may become less responsible. In this fashion, family
members complement rather than compete with one another. These behaviors have occurred so many times,
often without being thought about, that they have shaped the members to fit together like pieces of a puzzle-
-a perfect, predictable fit.
Family Systemic Influences
Family influences may be experienced as an "invisible force." Family members' behavior can vary
considerably. They may act much differently when they are with other family members than when they are
with people outside the family. By its very presence, the family system shapes the behaviors of its members.
The invisible forces (i.e., systemic influences) that govern the behaviors of family members are at work
every time the family is together. These "forces" include such things as spoken or unspoken expectations,
alliances, rules for managing conflicts, and implicitly or explicitly assigned roles.
In the case of an adolescent with behavior problems, the family's lack of skills to manage a misbehaving
youth can create a force (or pattern of interaction) that makes the adolescent inappropriately powerful in the
family. For example, when the adolescent dismisses repeated attempts by the parents to discipline him or
her, family members learn that the adolescent generally wins arguments, and they change their behavior
accordingly. Once a situation like this arises in which family expectations, alliances, rules, and so on have
been reinforced repeatedly, family members may be unable to change these patterns without outside help.
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