Psychology

More than sixty five years ago, Virginia Satir made a debut in the therapy field through her work on family therapy.  She first worked as a school teacher and then a social worker and through her work experience she was able to develop one of the most important models that have been employed in family therapy. From her experience, she came up with an approach which she used to work with families.  Analysts have described Satir as hard working, warm, brilliant, and in touch with her work as she understood the pain of being humans (Nicholas and Schwartz, 1997). In her work, Satir developed mental field away from pathological concept and gave the notion of people as a product of negative family patterns.  Virginia Satir is a well known family therapist who deals with the entire family rather than a single family member.

Satir model
Counseling models are developed in order to assist counselors to help their clients. They are developed after a carefully research based on theory and practice (Bowen and Kerr, 1988). One of the pioneers in the area of family counseling research Murray Bowen reinforced the importance of development of model through clinical research. He is quoted to have said that I have spent almost three decades on clinical research in psychotherapy. A major part of my effort has gone toward clarifying theory and also toward developing therapeutic approaches consistent with the theory. I did this in the belief it would add to knowledge and provide better structure for research. A secondary gain has been an improvement in the predictability and outcome of therapy as the therapeutic method has come into closer proximity with the theory. (Bowen, 1994, p. 15)

Goals
According to Satir model, the primary goal of any family therapist is to deal with the pain of a family.  She hypothesized that family pain is manifested in different ways but most important it is manifested in symptom exhibited by one family member. However, these symptoms later extend to other family members in one way or another or in some shape and form. Satir acknowledge that the theory that supports family therapy is based on an attempt to deal with individuals in social context (Horne, 2000).  She sees people not just as individuals but as social players who interact with, influence and in the process get influenced by other people as well.  According to Satir, the individual family member who carries the predominant symptoms can be referred to as Identified Patient or I.P (Satir et al., 1991). This can be expressed in different ways and shifts from one family member to the other.  This implies that when a family member develops symptoms, which are most of the time manifested as mental or emotional stress, the family therapist must assume the symptoms not only as individual needs but as a family function.

For example, Satir argued that a pained marital relationship mostly leads to dysfunctional parenting.  Therefore, the Identified Patient in this case is the family members who bears the effect of pain or is adversely affected by the pained marital relationship.  This is the family member who is likely to be affected by and in a way subjected to dysfunctional parenting. Satir therefore defined Identified Patient Symptoms as SOS which results from family imbalance or parental dysfunction (Nicholas and Schwartz, 1997).

It should be noted that the troubled or disturbed family member may change from time to time. The identified patient may shift from one child to the other depending on the prevailing conditions.  Ms. Satir was quick to point out that the symptoms expressed by the identified patient should be used to express that she or he is distorting his or her growth  in the process of trying to absorb and lessen the pain her  or his parents are going through (Horne, 2000).  She also shows that everyone will try to place the causal origin in the distorted parental relationship.

Family therapist might have noted that most troubled children will regress or sometimes get worse after visits home. It has become common that family members often call and attempts to influence the course of therapy of a family member and if a child shows or a family member undergoing therapy starts to improve, another family member is likely to develop similar symptoms. This implies that troubled family members symptoms should be taken in the context of the family rather than an individual member problem as explained in intra-psychic (Satir et al., 1991).

According to Satir, family can be described as an interacting unit which always works to have balanced relationships by using repetitious, circular, and predictable patterns of communication.  This implies that communication is at the heart of family relationships and without effective communication, it is difficult for family to hold together.  This phenomenon has also been described as family homeostasis defining the relationship between family members.  According to Satir, spousal mates are family architects and therefore family relationships can be described as the axis around which family members and bonded and forms family relationships (Satir and Baldwin, 1983).

Key concepts
The heart of Satir family therapy model is the sought improvement which assists in the transformation system. This should be the guiding factor for all family therapists. Satir system is modeled to help people to make remarkable improvement in their lives by transforming how they see and express themselves.
According to Ms. Satir theory, marital relationships are the axis around which family relationships are built (Satir et al., 1991).  Her theory therefore revolves around the formation of marital relationships as the base for family stability. In her work, she concentrates on family assumed relationship built on male and female adult with a given number of children.  However, in her work, she gives little consideration to family variations which greatly limited the scope of her work.

In her discussions, she shows that one-parent family is incomplete and she gave the following problems as some special problems which may affect single-parent families
Giving accurate messages  regarding departed family members
Fulfilling all children needs
Sorting out roles and teaching attitude on children gender roles
She also showed that there were possible problems which could be confronted by blended families which involves adoption and step-parenting. Some of the problems which may be experienced by these families include
Learning to have truest on new family members
Giving children consistent messages including encouraging them to express their conflicting messages
Showing honesty regarding the past and also being realistic about their present situation
Giving their children the freedom to love and express love for who they choose to love
Allowing family members adequate time to visits whoever or wherever they want to
Accepting and developing understanding between natural and foster parents
In her work, she further showed that people who are in a troubled relationship used to experience low self-esteem which brings about mate problems.  Because of the low self-esteem and insecurities, these mates will not communicate their fears and expectations they have for one another. Both feel they want qualities in the other that is lacking but they dont have the courage to ask for it directly fearing rejection (Satir and Baldwin, 1983). Improvement of communication is a major concern in development of her family therapeutic model. She argues that effective communication is important to show the progress of the therapy and also for the family to understand each other.

Satir also described functional communicator vs. dysfunctional communicator. She described functional communicator as a person who can firmly state the case, ask for feedback, and be receptive to the sent feedback (Satir et al., 1991).  On the other hand, dysfunctional communicator tends to over-generalize everything, send incomplete messages, and use pronouns vaguely.

Marital differences also bring about difficulties in handling arising differences. Mates in a relationship react negatively to their perceived differences and act separately (Pottenger, 2009).  They will fear open disagreements and covert their communications.  It becomes difficult for them to have a strong one person in the relationship at one time and deny their own individuality.   This may even be complicated by the birth of a child and it brings extra burden in the relationship. This may also be contributed by other factors like family shift like coming of relatives into the family, outside stressor like loss of employment, and many others.
Ms. Stir stress that a child growing up in a family will need a number of things in order to develop self-esteem.  They need to have physical comfort, continuity in parental relationship, learning how to structure the work, respecting themselves as competent individuals in the word, and many others (Satir et al., 1991). This requires validation from parents and constant and unconditional attention from parents to assist children to master the world.  When parents do one way and say another, children get confused and they may try to clear the confusion and contraction through distorting some aspect of their lives. Disturbed children or I.P. will begin his or her behavior as a means of side-tracking his or her parents who have problems. He or she will fear losing one or both parents and the symptoms of I.P becomes a way of drawing focus away from the disturbed parental relationship (Nicholas and Schwartz, 1997).

Satir assumes that children who show I.P are most likely to be exposed to double-blind messages for a long period of time.  She describes a double blind messages as a message which is congruent, that is, a message that asks for one response at a given level and then contradictory response at another level. The child, or the receiver, must reject one level.

Satir shows that maturity is one of the most important goals in therapy.  Satir agues that, a mature person is able to see the world, make individual choices, accept personal responsibility and communicate in a clear understandable manner (Satir, 1983).  This is a unique person who recognizes he or she is different from others and sees differentness as an opportunity to learn. On the other hand, an immature personal is a dysfunctional person. He or she tend to have low self-esteem and communicates unclearly.

Process
What important role can a therapist play in all this According to Satir, therapists tend to act as an observer in all this. He or she tries to see all interactions taking place and may get caught in one point of view.  The therapist is supposed to be a model communicator and hence must be aware of any prejudice or unconscious assumptions. Therapist spells the rules that must be followed by a troubled family in order to a have a meaningful and functional communication (Satir et al., 1991). He or she must check to know whether the meaning intended was the one which was received.  The therapist must assist the family to see their covert and congruent messages as be as clear as possible to assist the family to move in the required direction.

In order to carry out an effective family therapy, Virginia Satir proposes and uses a number of techniques.  First she starts by taking the chronology of family life. This is used in order to structure the therapy and give security to the family and at the same time gives the therapist a clear understanding of the family background. This also helps to take the focus off the I.P. and starting focusing on the distorted marital relationship.  After sometimes on the therapy she proposes introduction of differentness (Satir, 1983). She says that the therapist should expect disagreement to be commented on instead of being hidden.  The therapist should also point the difference between what parents do and what they tell their children to do. In order to bridge any existing gap, the therapist should compare the experience of one mate to the experience of the other.

Satir seems to encourage the fact to let parents know that they were initially mates and should work to recover their lost relationship before taking their roles as parents.  This may be the reasons why she encourages going to the past first in order to recover the present and lessen the feeling of guilt. She works to assist the mates express fears, hopes and expectations openly through using the idea of good intention but poor communication (Nicholas and Schwartz, 1997).  She strives to build self esteem and label assets even which the family may not have seen.

Satir also employ different communication games. She uses role plays and in one game she use roles she names Placater, Distracter, Blamer, and computer. She expresses her feelings that these role games may run through many families. Placater agrees to avoid anger but beneath is frustrated. Blamer hides fear by blaming others before they can blame him or her (Satir, 1983). On the other hand, computer searchers for security through intellectualization of everything while Distracter protects him or her self by distracting others, changing to other subjects, shifting reference frame, and others. She also shows the importance of touch in humans and this game is used to raise awareness so that people can see, hear and feel others.  She asserts that it is difficult to remain incongruent when in physical contact or in eye to eye contact with the other. To reinforce the importance of communication she stress that I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them.  The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made. (Satir et al., 1991)

How I would use this model
I find Satir work one of the most useful in family therapy. She has shown clearly how family dynamics in relationships can lead to distorted family relationships which affect children.  Her work is based on general systems theory and shows important ways through which family relationship can be changed.  She acknowledges that change can happen in three ways it can be initiated by need to survive, it can be initiated out of hope, and it can be initiated by acknowledgement of what is already taking place in the family.

Through a clear understanding of her work, I would employee it to foster changes in the family but following her laid down model.

Therefore when conducting a family therapy sessions, I would first dwell on understanding family historical background. This would help the family to recapture with the past and bring them to the current system. After helping the family to recapture the past the next step would be bring out the difference that exists between family members to assist them recognize that there are differentness that existence between them but which need to be solved constructively. In order to prevent the I.P to shift from one family member to the other, all family members should be involved in the family therapy process.

At the heart of this model is the need to restore trust and communication patterns in the family. This is the base upon which the family is built and once shaken, the whole family becomes distorted. Therefore employing this model in family therapy should strive to bring back trust between mates which will later be transferred to children.