Las hipótesis de trabajo

The family-helper map is intended to facilitate orientation within the system, con-sisting of family members, informal helpers and professional helpers. Much like one uses a geographic map during a long hike in uncertain territory, such a map can be consulted whenever things become unclear. The family-helper map con-solidates and visualizes many different pieces of information; it provides an over-view of the case as a whole and allows a more clinical bird’s-eye over-view.

Such a map concentrates and structures information by asking the following questions:

– How large is the client’s family system? What is the client’s role? (genogram) – What informal support system, e.g., friends, relatives or neighbors, does the

family have? (informal support system)

– Who belongs to the helper system and which institutions are actively participat-ing in the case (social services, school, kindergarten, counselparticipat-ing center, doctors, therapists, clinics, etc.)? How large is the helper system and is it manageable for both the helpers and the family? What do the individual members of the helper system know about each other? Do they know what the others are doing and what their respective role is? (existing helper system)

– Which helpers were involved in the past but are no longer involved? How many helpers has the family had to date? (In a family with, say, three children, with a difficult social and familial situation, and with multiple problems with all of the children, we can be talking about up to 40 persons!) How often have the partic-ipants already told their story? How often have they already been helped? How often have they set up contracts with helpers? (earlier helper system)

– What are the relationships between everyone involved, including between fam-ily members and helpers: close, distant, with or without boundaries, coalitions, alliances? (map according to Minuchin). Here, too, it is essential to include only the fewest possible, most important relationships (symbols) which clearly de-scribe the most vital structures. The family-helper map would otherwise quickly become confusing and impractical.

Background Text: First- and Second-Order Cybernetics Observers are part of the system

The family-helper maps demonstrates one of the most important tenets of systemic work: It is not sufficient to look only at the family system; the fam-ily’s context – inasmuch as it is relevant to the question at hand – must also be included. Especially other active helpers greatly influence what happens.

We helpers are equally part of this new system, consisting of family, informal helpers and professional helpers. This thought may seem obvious, but it rep-resented a major step forward in the history of systemic therapy: It marked the transition from the first to the second level of cybernetics.

If we put aside our role as helpers and view only the client system, we ignore the many reciprocities that exist between the system and ourselves.

We are viewing the system as if it were purely as an object to be dealt with, whereas if we see ourselves as part of the system, it becomes clear that we must deal with how our views of the system and its members are influenced by our own position within that system. The prerequisite for analyzing our own position is the ability to differentiate between the various levels of ob-servation in the system. These levels are described in the following illustra-tions and texts.

A system (e.g., a family)

A family with all its relationships, communication patterns, history, culture and conflict rituals is depicted in Figure 12. If an observer (counselor) were to observe and describe this system, the result would be something like that given in Figure 12. Yet the observer does not exist in this descrip-tion! The description asserts the claim to objectivity because the observer is not present (first-order cybernetics). Systems and their internal workings would appear to exist exactly as the observer denotes. This method ob-scures the fact that all descriptions are merely the perceptions and assump-tions of an observer.

Figure 12: A system (e.g., a family)

An observer system: Counselor plus family (see Figure 13)

Together with the counselor the family forms a new system in which the main themes are communication, family structure, its relationships, communica-tion patterns, history, culture, etc. For example, in this observer system the counselor could let a sculpture be done depicting all of these things. We speak of second-order cybernetics only when the fact has been admitted that the observer interacts with the system, that all observations and all hypotheses of the counselor about the system are not objective but rather the result of such interaction, filtered through the cognitions, opinions and assumptions of that observer. The structures and even the system boundaries of the family are all assumptions made by the observer and not objective facts (see the Background Text on “What Is a System?” in Chapter 2.2).

Figure 13: An observer system (counselor plus family)

Observer-observer systems: Supervision group or team (see Figure 14) In this constellation a group of observers observes and analyzes the interac-tion of another observer with a system. This is the case in supervision or a case-management meeting. The group makes hypotheses concerning the in-teraction, for example, about how the helper can initiate change in the system by own interactions, or why such a change has not previously been possible.

The family-helper map, which includes both the observing and the interven-ing counselor, is the drivinterven-ing force behind the idea of second-order cybernet-ics: The observer is part of the system! A counselor’s own observations, standpoints and assumptions about the system cannot be isolated from his or her own position and relationships within the system.

Family-helper system (see Figure 15)

A family-helper system can be an observation system with several observers (helpers) with their respective hypotheses about the dynamics of the family.

These hypotheses depend, among other things, on the context of the respec-tive helper, their relationship to the family and the institutional mandate.

Fur-Figure 14: Observer-observer system (supervision group or team)

Figure 15: Family-helper system. The figure shows an example drawn from youth wel-fare services. For readers not familiar with the terminology in this field here a few of the pertinent abbreviations:

GSS = General Social Services, whose role it is to carry out the laws pertaining to children and adolescents, among others, protecting children from abuse and supporting families, children and adolescents. The GSS is usually the authority that sets up the interventions to be taken on behalf of the family.

FA: Family Assistance, the authority that carries out the measures decided upon by the GSS and maintains contact with the family. The family gets its direct support from and is accompanied by the FA. The FA counsels the parents and, together with the parents, works out the details of daily life, often directly in the family’s living quarters.

3.3.1 Drawing Up a Family-Helper Map

The basis of any family-helper map is a complete genogram with all levels of family relations. The informal helpers can be grouped around the genogram. The professional helpers involved should be entered in the lower part of the map, with past helpers best listed under a line at the bottom part of the map.

Besides the basic facts determined during the exploration, the map should also include information and assumptions concerning the relationships of the system members. Draw in the most important ones with the help of Minuchin’s relation-ship symbols. Assumptions about relationrelation-ships that seem vague, or if one is un-certain or consider them of lesser importance, should be excluded at this point, for the following reasons:

– A proper overview is sacrificed if there are too many relationship symbols pre-sent. A geographical map that contains every single stone and bush is a poor map indeed.

ther, the helpers have relationships among themselves as do their respective institutions. Thus, there is a danger that the individual interventions of the many helpers could disrupt instead of complement each other. If there is an impasse in the work with the family or disruptions in the cooperation be-tween the various establishments, it may be advantageous to build some hy-potheses concerning the interactions going on in the family-helper system.

The helpers and the family member involved are greatly influenced in their hypotheses about the dynamics of the family-helper system by their own per-spective on the system. At this juncture a new level of observation may arise – that of a supervision group or professional team. The observers of a fami-ly-helper system use the external perspective of such a viewpoint to suggest new hypotheses about the dynamics of the family-helper system. This in turn forms the basis for new interventions to bring about changes in the family or in the cooperation of the helpers involved.

When working systemically with families, other helpers, professional teams and supervision groups, it is important to distinguish between the various system and observation levels:

– Which system are we describing now? And what is our role as an observer in this system?

– How influenced are our hypotheses by our own perspectives within the system?

– From what perspective and in whose interests are we writing reports and official statements and making decisions?

– How can we take into account the perspectives and actions of the other helpers when setting up cooperations, agreements and relationships?

– The map is an important tool for documenting the case – but not for recording every fleeting thought about the case.

– The map should be such that we can show it to other colleagues. That means eliminating all speculative assumptions about the relationship network which might cause unnecessary irritations.

3.3.2 Notes on Recording the Informal Helpers

In this step those persons who support or are important to the client system are introduced onto the map. This can include friends, relatives, an adolescent’s peer group or other important consultants such as pastors, godparents, mullahs and imams as well as the classical helpers and healers of the respective culture (ma-gicians, witches, healers). These various sources of help can be very important to persons from other cultures who may not be accustomed or willing to turn to Western psychosocial counseling centers with their developmental and familial problems. We usually try to actively query foreign clients concerning such tradi-tional cultural helpers since they may not come forward with this information on their own: They think we are not interested or do not take them seriously.

The social system of a street gang may provide a 17-year-old delinquent with useful suggestions and solutions – albeit different ones than a social worker or counselor might come up with. Likewise the friends from home in Morocco might give a Moroccan man whose wife and children have moved into a women’s refuge very different advice about what he should or should not do in the situation and offer him other practical tips.

It is important to note these influences and give them a symbol on the map.

Otherwise, we may overlook relevant and important elements within a system.

In particular we may miss the valuable resources that lie in such informal helper systems and can be implemented in our interventions to ensure a success therapy.

3.3.3 Notes on Recording Professional Helpers in the Map

We recommend a thorough exploration of the professional helpers who are presently working with the family or have worked with them in the past. Ask about the goals that were set, about the intensity of their engagement, about their successes and failures. It is also interesting to find out what the individual family members learned from previous helpers and how, why and by whom their efforts were terminated.

(Such questions are given in Chapter 2.3.1 for use in explorations.)

Taking too little time to elicit this information will inevitably be punished in the long run: You will inevitably miss out on the perspectives of other professional helpers toward the same problems you are now confronted with, or how the fam-ily system has dealt with such helper relationships! It may make you feel good to be unique and exclusive, but it definitely damages your realistic chances of

achieving success with the clients. Above all, in this way one fails to learn from earlier attempts at intervention.

The map should contain the names of the helpers’ institutions in squares. We recommend entering the actual persons from the institutions involved with whom the family had contact as well as those persons from the respective institution who played a major role in making decisions or participated in helper conferences.

3.3.4 Key to the Family-Helper Map

Up to now we have entered on the map mostly the facts learned during the explora-tion. But putting in the relationship symbols according to Minuchin now means entering one’s own points of view and observations regarding the relationships.

The key on the family-helper map can also document the perspectives of the most important persons in the family-helper system. These are determined by asking the questions suggested in Chapter 2 (What are the family’s strengths?

What is the problem? What would be a good solution? What does this person expect from me as a helper?). Note the positions of each person on a separate piece of paper that can be added to over time. It is also helpful to make sketches of the most important belief systems, convictions, value systems, etc., of each of these persons (see Table 2 above).

This method also reveals which of the positions we have given the greatest atten-tion to: Which page has the most entries – and which has none? Whose posiatten-tions were more (or less) carefully documented? Once again we are dealing here with one of the most basic tenets of systemic work: Systemic counselors feel obliged to remain neutral. In practice that entertaining all perspectives of the system, every point of view of every participant. The counselor must always see to it that the individual positions in the system are not discriminated against, simply because

– they take up less time during the sessions,

– they incite less curiosity and appreciation in the counselor, – they are less well documented.

Documenting the positions of the individual system members in the key to the family-helper map reveals the following:

– which of the system members I am attracted to – or not: social neutrality;

– which of the system members captures my attention and engages me – or not:

social neutrality;

– whose behavior, problems and explanations I more readily accept – or deny:

neutrality toward process;

– whose goals, solutions, points of view and interests agree with my own – or not:

neutrality toward outcome;

– toward whom I am more lenient (or harsh), whom I know best (or least), whose interpretations get lost (or always come to the forefront): social neutrality;

Background Text: On Neutrality

Systems may be viewed from many different vantage points (Morgan, 2006):

– technically, as the logical intermeshing of different feedback loops.

– biologically, as organisms that adapt again and again in order to survive under new circumstances; as organisms that strive to secure the satisfac-tion of their needs and thus their own survival; or as organisms whose main task it is to regenerate themselves both from within and from without via activity.

– psychologically, as a place where the psychological needs of the partici-pants are staged, for example, creating something together that extends beyond death (children, a house, a company, etc.); or roles that are acted out (the princess, the fool, the king’s murderer, the warrior, the diligent one, the vamp, the lover, etc.).

– politically, by recognizing interests, power distribution, struggles for self-assertion, strengths, weaknesses, fear of failure, parties, coalitions and neutrality.

Of particular importance for all social systems – families or organizations alike – is the political moniker one looks through. This aspect must receive special attention when a new helper is added to a system. Adding new parties and new power distribution plans this inevitably changes the previous polit-ical equilibrium. Such a situation is important to the participants because the system is usually unstable and at danger at exactly those points of time when new helpers are added. This is why the new helper is seen an important par-ticipant in the future development of the system:

– How much influence does that person garner?

– To which party does that person belong?

– Which party suggested adding that person to the system and why?

– Does that person remain neutral?

– Does that person sympathize with the values, goals, beliefs, solutions and programmatic positions of a particular party?

– Does the person endanger one’s ability to assert their own interests?

– Can that person be utilized by someone to assert their own interests?

If it is our goal to be a counselor to the entire system and not a partisan to one side or the other (consciously or not), then we need a certain measure of neutrality, if only to be accepted by all participants of the system as a coun-selor. For this reason, systemic therapists and counselors began early on to concern themselves with various concepts of neutrality.

One early suggestion was that of multidirected partiality (Boszormenyi-Nagy, 1985; Stierlin et al., 2002). According to this principle, the counselor should be able to identify and side with all participants of the system – throughout the entire duration of the intervention. This idea is difficult to

realize because it demands a great deal of internal flexibility and great breadth of empathy. It is also difficult to test or even observe this in everyday situations.

Later there evolved the concept of neutrality (Selvini-Palazzoli et al., 1981), in the sense of a continually changing partiality. In this scheme the counselor allows space for new system points of view or perspectives, is interested in those positions, examines them, and tries to understand how they affect the interac-tions within the system in both the past and future. If the helper does this in a relatively fair manner with respect to his or her own available curiosity, time, interest and appreciation, then something approaching social neutrality can be reached. For many systemic counselors this concept appears to be easier to manage because it emphasizes the successive pattern of attention paid to the various persons in the system. Unlike multidirected partiality, it focuses more on concrete behavior than on some inner disposition. Whether each person in the system has in fact been treated more or less equally becomes apparent in the course of the session. Thus, the concept of neutrality is easier to verify and operationalize than multidirected partiality. The idea of neutrality forms the basis of the conscious and systematic questioning of the various points of view and their documentation in the key to the family-helper map.

Neutrality in this sense of the word does not exclude the counselor from having own opinions. Thus, we differentiate several different types of neutrality:

– The counselor can be socially neutral by favoring no one and being equally interested in all positions of all persons involved.

– The counselor can be socially neutral by favoring no one and being equally interested in all positions of all persons involved.