Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas

197 Pages·1991·6.64 MB·English

by  Barbara Jo Brothers

Virginia Satir:
Foundational Ideas
Virginia Satir:
Foundational Ideas
Barbara Jo Brothers
Editor
Tulane School of Social Work
Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas has also been published as Journal of Couples Therapy, Vol
ume 2, Numbers 1/2 1991.
© 1991 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced
or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publisher.
First published by:
The Haworth Press, Inc. 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580
£UROSPAN/Haworth, 3 Henrietta Street, London WC2E 8LU England
This edition published 2011 by Routledge:
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
711 Third Avenue 27 Church Road
New York, NY 10017 Hove East Sussex BN3 2FA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Virginia Satir: foundational ideas / Barbara Jo Brothers, editor,
p. cm.
ISBN 1-56024-104-7 (alk. paper)
1. Family psychotherapy. 2. Marital psychotherapy. 3. Satir, Virginia. I. Brothers, Bar
bara, 1937- .
RC488.5.V55 1991
616.89' 156 - dc20 90-26287
CIP
Virginia Satir:
Foundational Ideas
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Barbara Jo Brothers
Virginia: The Work 1
Virginia: The Visionary 4
Methods for Connectedness: Virginia Satir's
Contribution to the Process of Human Communication 11
Barbara Jo Brothers
Congruence — Connecting Energy 13
Incongruence — Disconnecting Energy 16
Physical Implications 18
Congruence — Truth 19
Theory and Practice of the Satir System 21
Yetta M. Bemhard
The Triadic Concept in the Work of Virginia Satir 27
Michele Baldwin
I. What Is a Triad? 28
II. The Learnings in the Primary Triad 29
III. The Nurturing Triad 34
IV. The Primary Triad as a Teacher 36
Virginia Satir's Triad Theory for Couples Therapy 43
Judith Bula Jacobs
Introduction 43
Triad Theory in Family Therapy 44
Virginia Satir's Triad Theory 47
Virginia Satir's Triad Theory For Couples Therapy 51
Enhancing the Marital Relationship: Virginia Satir's
Parts Party 59
Joan E. Winter
Leanne R. E. Parker
Underlying Principles 62
Parallel Theoretical Rationales 67
Satir's Perspective Regarding Couples 70
Application 76
Implications for Treatment 80
Conclusion 81
Increasing Couple Intimacy Using Virginia Satir's
Temperature Reading 83
Lynne M. Azpeitia
Walter F. Zahnd
How Temperature Reading Works 85
Doing a Temperature Reading 89
Other Therapeutic Applications Using Temperature
Reading 97
Closing 99
Family Reconstruction: The Masterpiece of Virginia Satir 103
William Nerin
Goals of Family Reconstruction 110
Goals in Guiding 111
Virginia Satir's Process of Change 119
Laura 5. Dodson
I. Introduction 119
II. Theory and Philosophy Undergirding Virginia's
Process of Change 120
III. The Ingredients of Change 122
IV. New Status Quo —New Balance 135
V. Application of the Change Process to Life-Long
Growth 137
VI. Change in Individuals Related to World Peace 139
VII. The Legacy 140
Peoplemaking: Self Esteem or Shame? 143
Maxine West
Experiential Learning: Reflections on Virginia Satir
and Eugene Gendlin 155
Bala Jaison
Satir's Formula for Therapeutic Endurance:
The Wonderful Human Being Myth 165
Michael D. Spiegler
An Essay of Virginia Satir 169
Birgitte Winkel
Healing Virginia 173
Barbara Jo Brothers
The Dying Process of a Conscious Woman—Virginia
Satir 179
Laura 5. Dodson
Virginia Satir Bibliography 189
Compiled by Lynne M. Azpeitia
Index 193
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Barbara Jo Brothers, MSW, BCD, a Diplomate in Clinical Social
Work, National Association of Social Workers, is in private prac
tice in New Orleans. She received her BA from the University of
Texas and her MSW from Tulane University, where she is currently
on the faculty. She was editor of The Newsletter of the American
Academy of Psychotherapists from 1976 to 1985, and was associate
editor of Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy from 1979
to 1989. She has had nearly 30 years of experience, in both the
public and private sectors, helping people to form skills that will
enable them to connect emotionally. The author of numerous arti
cles and book chapters on authenticity in human relating, she has
advocated healthy, congruent communication that builds intimacy
as opposed to destructive, incongruent communication which
blocks intimacy. In addition to her many years of direct work with
couples and families, Ms. Brothers has led numerous workshops on
teaching communication in families and has also played an integral
role in the development of training programs in family therapy for
mental health workers throughout the Louisiana state mental health
system.
Introduction
Barbara Jo Brothers
. . . Amid these [world] changes is the growing conviction that
human beings must evolve a new consciousness that place a
high value on being human, that leads toward cooperation,
that enables positive conflict resolution and that recognizes
our spiritual foundations. Can we accept as a given that the
self of the therapist is an essential factor in the therapeutic
process? If this turns out to be true, it will alter our way of
teaching therapists as well as treating patients. (Satir, 1987,
pg. 25).
VIRGINIA: THE WORK
This volume is dedicated to the late and lovely Virginia Satir,
mentor to many and enigma to others in the world of family ther
apy. The legacy left by Virginia,1 this very exceptional being, in
cludes her profound insight into the behaviour of human beings and
the guidelines for the application of universal principles in such a
way as to enhance human growth and unite individuals.
During the year after her death, there were beautiful tributes
made to Virginia Satir which focused on her life from a personal
point of view. This tribute —while fully recognizing her position
that the personal cannot effectively be separated from the treatment
process — focuses on her ideas and thinking; it was very important
to Virginia that her work be understood as teachable and learnable.
Presented are her ideas and her major processes, the processes hav
ing been designed as vehicles to facilitate the training of the self that
would be therapist. The articles in this collection reflect her most
basic ideas about the healing quality of respect for all people and the
emphasis on the person of both therapist and patient— as opposed to
© 1991 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 VIRGINIA SATIR: FOUNDATIONAL IDEAS
the emphasis on technique. All the contributors in these pages had
personal contact with Virginia. Those who describe her theories and
processes had extensive contact with her, were the mentored; they
knew, loved, and worked very closely with Virginia over a number
of years. Thus, this collection represents an excellent sample of her
work (— in so far as her so very experiential work can be captured
on the printed page. The serious student might want to supplement
this reading with the viewing of videotapes of Virginia working and
by enrolling in a training seminar that teaches the Satir system). The
masterly work of Virginia, the mentor, shines through.
The roots of the previously mentioned enigmatic factor may also
become more clear through reading this collection. This enigmatic
factor was born of Virginia's very exceptional breadth and depth of
view as well as of spirit; it will be addressed in the next section of
this introduction-VIRGINIA: THE VISIONARY. To be able to
see —to perceive — more than does the average person is both the
gift and the burden of the brilliant. The uniqueness of Virginia's
genius lay in the fact that she was able to translate her larger vision
for the therapist who attended her longer training programs. Her
"magic" demonstrated in a weekend workshop was composed,
again, of those teachable, learnable skills; the thirteen contributors
to this volume are living testimony to that fact.
In this issue are the assorted representative pictures of Virginia's
work. Those pictures present her foundational ideas: her triad con
cept, her model for change, her communication theory, her parts
party process, her family reconstruction process, her temperature
reading process, and her belief in the worth of the person. Maxine
West and Bala Jaison also show examples of directions in which her
work may be expanded and synthesized with the work of others.
Yetta Bernhard provides an excellent summary of Virginia's
therapeutic activity; what she did and why she did it. She cogently
describes Virginia's basic theses and methods. Michele Baldwin,
who co-authored with Virginia, Step-By-Step, presents one view of
the triad concept —the basic unit of humankind. Virginia has said
that coupling will go as parenting went. Michele describes "Char
lie's" process of data-gathering in his experience in his first triad,
his family of origin. Charlie will grow up to be half of a pair or to
spend energy avoiding being half of a pair, based on those early