PYC4808 - Ecosystemic Psychology study pack 2022.

PYC4808 - Ecosystemic Psychology study pack 2022. INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY (Western) vs SYSTEMIC PSYCHOLOGY Most of us have been socialised into a Western, Lockean scientific tradition. Most individual psychology approaches rest on the assumptions of this linear worldview. Systems theory directs our attention away from the individual and moves towards andemphasis on recursion, reciprocity and mutual influence. Discuss this fundamental shift in worldviews by referring to the fundamental assumptions of bothtraditional individual psychology approaches and systems theory. (10) ‘Individual psychology approaches are based on assumptions that are fundamental tothewestern, Lockean tradition, while systemic family therapy rests on a very different set of assumptions. Discuss this statement by comparing the assumptions of systems theory. In your answer provide a definition of epistemology. (20-25)  Whereas individual psychology approaches are based on assumptions fundamental to the Western, Lockean tradition, systemic family therapy rests onavery different set of assumptions.  Western, Lockean, scientific tradition.  Modernism Linear casualty (A causes B)  In Individual psychology, the assumptions are consistent with such basic Americanvalues as individual responsibility and autonomy.  Socialised in this way of thinking – consistent without communities + our culture Reality is out there, outside our minds and the truth is to be discovered  Objective reality – break down into smaller components and uncover laws according to which the world operates  Pursue knowledge by means of observation + experimentation  These results are measurable and objective. The subject (observing) remain separate from object and be value free  In Systemic family therapy, however, the underlying assumptions are contradictory to the traditional ways of thinking in Western society.  Hence, our use of the term ‘counter-cultural’ to characterise systems theory andcybernetics.  Systems theory/cybernetics directs our attention away from the individual andindividual problems viewed in isolation and toward relationships and relationshipissues between individuals.  In contrast to the Lockean tradition, systems theory is consistent with the traditionlabelled as Kantian. Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 3 Accordingly, the observer replaces the observed as the focus of attention. Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 4 Subjectivity is seen as inevitable based on the assumption that the one whoisobserving perceives, acts on, and participates in creating his or her own reality.  In addition, the interdependence of observer and observed is an important aspect of a holistic perspective that takes into account the context of their interaction.  Such interaction is seen as a non-causal, dialectical process of mutual exchangein which both have influence.  Finally, understanding a family or other system requires assessing patterns of interaction, with an emphasis on what is happening, rather than why it is happening. Individual Psychology (Western, Lockean) Systemic Psychology Asks WHY? Asks WHAT? Linear cause-and-effect A -B Reciprocal Causality A and B exists =giveandtake actions Subject or object dualism Dialectical Either or dichotomies Holistic Value-free science Subjective /Perceptual Deterministic /reactive Freedom of choice / pro-active Laws and law like external reality Patterns Historical Focus Here and now focus Individualistic Relational Reductionistic contextual Absolutistic relativistic Focus on content Focus on process Judgements about clients Logic behaviour in context Reality – out there How we each participate in creating our ownrealities The truth A story about stories What caused the problem How the problem is being maintained andthesolutions desired by the client Treating patients Interaction, recursion, mutual influence, perturbation People in isolation People in context/interdependence Who is in the room How the therapist THINKS about who is intheroom Define the following concepts and provide appropriate example in each one: Epistemology (2-3)  A set of rules about what reality is, based on how a group of people think, talk andact.  Epistemology pertains how rules that govern our thinking are created and shared– how we know what we know.  How knowledge is created  Your epistemology will shape your thinking as well as how you view and understand the world. Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 5 the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope,  and the distinction between justified belief and opinion.  Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief.  Example : Social Constructionism and Systems Theory  Example :African Epistemology which includes the African conception of validityof knowledge, the purpose of the pursuit of knowledge and the role that knowledgeplays in human existence.  For example, a lie cannot be truth because it is not factual and false Theory (2-3)  Set of connected principles serving to explain a group of phenomena of interest tothe researcher  Serving as a statement of relations believed in a body of observations  Theories are informed and specified by particular epistemologies  A theory is a formal idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain something.  A theory is a based upon a hypothesis and backed by evidence. In science, athe- ory is not merely a guess. A theory is a fact-based framework for describingaphenomenon.  A theory presents a concept or idea that is testable. Scientists can test the theorythrough empirical research and gather evidence that supports or refutes it.  Example: Psychoanalytic theory, Behaviourist theory, General Systems Theory, etc. Model (2-3)  Projection of the substance of a less understood or developed domain onto thestructure of a more developed system  You take what you see and project it onto something else  Models are embedded within particular theories, which are also informed by specific epistemological assumptions.  Example: Models based on the works of psychosexual developmental stages of Sigmund Freud.  Models based on the works on Relational Analysis of C. Jung, etc., Operant Conditioning of B.F Skinner Technique (2-3)  Rehearsed or practised procedure or skill to achieve a particular end/outcomeinaccordance with a model used  Example: Interpretation (as used in Psychoanalytic theoretical framework).  Conditioning (as used in Behaviourist theoretical framework), etc.  Interpretation; conditioning; reflection; reframing; restructuring; free association; dream analysis Circularity may be viewed as a key principle in cybernetic thinking. With the aid of examples, distinguish among the concepts: circularity, positive feedback, recursion, recursion/mutual causality. Circularity (2-3) Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 6 The behaviour of person X affects person Y, and the reaction of Y to person X’sbehaviour will then affect person X’s behaviour, which in turn will affect personYand so on.  Example: Husband drinks a lot, wife shouts about drinking, which causes husbandto drink more and that makes wife shout even more.  Circular causality - is a recursive element. It refers to mutual interaction of causesand consequences.  The effect of an event or variable returns indirectly to influence the original evenitself by way of one or more intermediate events or variables. Cybernetics (3)  The characteristics of the systemic or cybernetic world is theoretical relativity.  We cannot reject one theory and embrace another  Rather cybernetics we recognize that each theory gives meaning to the other andthat each has utility relative to given context.  Entry into cybernetics does not mean we reject individual psychology; it is our passport to move freely between the two worlds.  Individual psychology and systemic /cybernetics are intricately connected as eachgive meaning to the other.  Cybernetics can be seen as the “skeleton of science” which may be fleshed out bywhatever discipline one chooses.  Cybernetics is not a pragmatic theory.  Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles.  Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. CYBERNETICS Briefly describe the concept cybernetics. Explain how and when it began and reviewits most influential developers in the field of psychology. (10)  Cybernetics is the field of study that concerns itself with organisation, patternandprocess rather that matter, material and content.  Early family theorists, researchers and therapists focused in the 1950s on thestudy of schizophrenia in the context of family relationships.  The intellectual soil out of which this work grew can be traced to the Josiah MacyFoundation Conferences in the 1940s, at which leading scientists, engineers, mathematicians and social scientists of the time explored issues of communication and control.  Ludwig von Bertalanffy, a biologist, proposed a general systems theory as anattempt to develop a coherent theoretical model which would have relevance toall living systems.  He believed that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and in order toun- derstand how an organism works we must study the transactional processes ocDownloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 7curring between the components of the system and notice emerging patterns andthe organized relationships between the parts.  Norbert Weiner, a mathematician, coined the term cybernetics and was especiallyinterested in information processing and the part feedback mechanisms play incontrolling and regulating both simple and complex systems. For Wiener, cyber- netics represented the science of communication and control in humans as well asin machines.  William Buckley, a social scientist, proposed that human relationships couldbeseen as analogous to a ‘system’ in that groups of families could be viewed as aset of a network of components (people) which were inter-related over time inamore or less stable way.  Another influential author was Korzybski, who in 1942 published Science andSanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. His nowfamous phrase, ‘the map is not the territory’ was used by Gregory Bateson ashedeveloped ideas of the importance of both content and process in human commu- nication.  Gregory Bateson, an English-born anthropologist and ethnologist, recognizedtheapplication of these mathematical, engineering and biological concepts to theso- cial and behavioural sciences and introduced the notion that a family couldbeviewed as a cybernetic system, particularly since by assuming social systems, likephysical and mechanical systems, were rule governed, both the uniformity andvariability of human behaviour could be accounted for.  Although the family was only one of many different types of natural systemthat interested Bateson, he is credited as providing the intellectual foundation for thefield because of his ideas and studies of patterns and communication.  In 1952 Jay Haley and John Weakland joined Gregory Bateson to study (withaRockefeller Foundation Grant) patterns and paradoxes in human and animal com- munication.  In 1954 Don Jackson joined their research team and (with a Macy FoundationGrant) they studied schizophrenic communication patterns and in 1956 publishedthe seminal text ‘Towards a theory of schizophrenia’.  He was also the first to formally and elegantly articulate the model of families asoperating in an analogous way to homeostatic biological systems in his paper ‘Thequestion of family homeostasis’.  In the late 1950s other now well-known family therapy pioneers were studyingschizophrenia:  Carl Whitaker in Tenessee was developing with colleagues a psychotherapy of chronic schizophrenic patients.  Lyman Wynne and colleagues were developing ideas about pseudo-mutuality inthe family relationships of schizophrenics.  Murray Bowen in Washington proposed an approach to schizophrenic families based on an idea of emotional divorce between members.  Theodore Lidz in Baltimore was looking at ‘marital schism’ and schizophrenia.  Ronald Laing in England was proposing schizophrenic family members werethesanest members of a family system. Ivan Boszomenyi-Nagy in Philadelphia (newlyemigrated from Hungary) was also researching into schizophrenia.  In Massachussetts, New York and London respectively, John Bell, Nathan Ackermanand John Bowlby were working with families who had problems other than a schiz- ophrenic family member.  The end of the decade saw Don Jackson found the Mental Research Institute (MRI) in Palo Alto (1959).  Nathan Ackerman created the Family Institute in New York in 1960 (renamedtheAckerman Institute after his death in 1970).  By the end of the 1960s Virginia Satir at MRI was recognized as a pioneer inthefield with her ‘unshakable conviction about people’s potential for growth andtherespectful role helpers needed to assume in the process of change’ (Simon 1992).  Salvador Minuchin et al. had published Families of the Slums (1967) and Minuchinbecome director of the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. Jay Haley worked therewith him from 1967. The Brief Therapy Project was begun in 1967 at MRI, andDonJackson died suddenly in 1968. Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 8 In Europe, Robin Skynner was creating the Institute of Family Therapy in Londonand a systems group was developed in the Department of Children and Parentsat the Tavistock Clinic, London.  In 1969 Sue Walrond Skinner founded the Family Institute in Cardiff, Wales. MaraSelvini Palazzoli had begun with colleagues in Italy to look beyond psychoanalysisfor a model to work with anorexic and schizophrenic patients and their families.  Helm Stierlin in Germany was looking at ‘the family as the patient’.  This phase saw in the early 1970s, distinct schools of family therapy emerge: structural (Minuchin); strategic (Haley and Madanes); communication and validation (Satir); existential (Whitaker); family of origin (Framo and Bowen) andmore – all of which supported the interventionist role of the therapist. First order cybernetics or simple cybernetics  Modernist philosophy  Therapists = stands outside the system and observes, therapist doesn’t seeself as part of the system, stand outside and check what is going on.  What is going on inside the system? Rules and roles define the system, information coming in and out  “here-and-now” – not much on the past only present  Shifts analysis from individual to system  Concentrates on the interaction between the members of the system Does not examine the characteristics of individuals  Analyses people on context to the system Downloaded by: lebomonnakgotla | Distribution of this document is illegal S - The study-notes marketplace 9 Less concerned with what is going on inside the person exhibiting problembehaviour  Looks at the intimate and immediate social network and to the larger social network of which the immediate social network is part of  When the components experience problems, it is because they have not beensocialised as to their proper role and structure by their hierarchal layer immediately above the layer demonstrating deviance  Therapist = identify formulate and repair the system 1. Recursion (3) Recursion/Mutual Causality (5)  Literally backward movement, return: eg a process by which the response to astatement raises the statement again  Self-referential systems have this quality.  All things applied to themselves including cybernetics of cybernetics are recursive Recursion - people and events are seen in the context of mutual interaction andmutual influence - how each member of the system interacts and influence eachother.  Each member I'm the system defines the others. Also known as Reciprocal Causality = we see people and events in the context of mutual interaction and mutual influence  Not concerned with the cause of certain behaviours  Causality becomes a reciprocal concept to be found only in the interface betweenindividuals and between systems as they mutually influence each other  Responsibility or power exists only as bilateral process, with each individual andelement participating in the creation of a particular reality  Nobody exists in isolation  A causes B and B causes A causes B causes  Relationship between individuals and elements – meanings are derived fromthis A father cannot be a father without a child.