How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching Families | Page 158

Roadblocks to family developmental change
Family therapists regardless of theoretical orientation have noticed that many families have not progressed
smoothly or automatically from one life cycle stage to another. Their clinical interventions focus on the
stressful transition points between stages. Certainly, in our own clinical work, we have sometimes
succumbed to the temptation to focus on particular transition points that have become problematic. The
potential trap is for systemic therapists to become too purposive, that is: to become too invested in a
particular outcome and to then direct the family to function or be restructured in a particular way.
Systemic therapists try not to "get in the way" of family development by not being directly directive. Thus
the notion that families must progress smoothly through the famity life cycle stages must he confronted.
Smooth progression, in our estimation, is not characteristic of a developing family. However. there are
occasions when families have "derailments from the family life cycle" (Caster & McGoldrick, 1980 p. 9).
This notion of derailments is useful, because it conjures up a much more optimistic view of family life
cycle difficulties.
One of the most common derailments that we encounter in our practice is the derailment by illness. The
impact on the family of a chronic or life-threatening illness does not automatically result in a derailment, but
it almost always interferes with roles, rules and rituals. From a systemic perspective, a derailment also
frequently occurs when family members are attempting to obtain meaning and clarification in a relationship.
The greater the ambiguity regarding relationships, particularly at various developmental junctures
throughout the family life cycle, the greater the chance for family and individual symptoms.
With any derailment, it should not necessarily be the therapist's goal to have the family return to the original
"track." Rather, it behooves the therapist to create a context for change for the family to allow them to
decide which track will provide the greatest opportunity for reduced stress and increased growth.
Interventions that create a context for developmental change.
There are numerous interventions that can be utilized to facilitate or create a context for change. However,
we will discuss only systemic interventions that create a context for developmental change.
Offering alternate realities
Systemic family therapists frequently offer beliefs, opinions or conceptions about problems without
regarding them as interventions. However, when strategically thought out and planned, these various types
of opinions serve as potent and useful interventions offering an alternate reality to those experiencing
particular problems.
1. Information and advice.
Families find advice and information about developmental problems valuable and beneficial. Frequently,
Information about developmental issues e.g., elderly parents' needs for "spatial but not social isolation" and
for "autonomy with contact" (Banziger, 1979) can liberate a family so that the members are then able to
resolve their own problems.
2. Systemic opinion (reframing)
Presenting symptoms may serve a positive function for a family. A systemic opinion is offered by
conceptualizing the presenting symptom as a solution to some other hypothetical or implied problem that
would or could occur should the symptom not be present (Tomm, 1984b). In the case example, the intense
inter-generational conflict was positively connoted as a distance regulator in an overly close parent-child
relationship. The symptomatic behavior is systemically reframed by connecting it to other behaviors in the
system. The connections are based on the information derived in the assessment through the process of
circular questioning. It is essential. when offering a systemic opinion to a family, that the reclusiveness of
the symptom be delineated: The symptom serves a positive function for the system while at the same time
the system serves a function by contributing and maintaining the symptom (Wright & Leahey. 1987).
3. Redefinition of the context of therapy
A powerful opinion can be given by redefining the context in which family therapy is provided. If a family
objects to attending sessions for what they have defined as Family therapy, then, based on the assessment,

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