MFT Exam - Milan Systemic Therapy

Milan Systemic: A metaphorical or symbolic message (process).

Later Milan Systemic:
The therapist asks one family member to comment on the interactions of two other family members to create circularity within the system and help the therapist build a more elaborate hypothesis.

Milan Systemic:
An intervention used to unravel a family’s double-bind message by referring to their dysfunction as legitimate and necessary, and as so, instructing the family not to change.

Classical Schools of Therapy

Primary Contributors

Mara Selvini Palazzoli

Guiliana Prata

Luigi Boscolo

Gianfranco Cecchin

Key Terms & Primary Interventions

A Learning Process: Milan Family Therapists viewed the use of interventions as nothing more than a learning process in which the therapist tests hypotheses and interventions through trial and error as they learn about the family.
Analogical Message: Circular Questioning: Counterparadox: Digital Message: Epistemological Error: Epistemology: Games: Hypothesizing: Metacommunication: Neutrality & Irreverence: Paradoxical Prescription: Positive Connotation: Punctuation (different than Structural): Rituals: Team Approach: The Dirty Game: The Invariant Perspective: Time:

Milan Systemic: The content of the message (objective).

Milan Systemic:
A set of beliefs that are incongruent with reality and become problematic, such as not believing that one is responsible for his or her own behaviors.

Milan Systemic: The manner in which individuals (families) make sense of the world, including their relationships to and with others.

Milan Systemic:
Unacknowledged strategies that result in destructive interactions within families—often, games are unspoken and used as attempts to control another’s behavior.

Milan Systemic: Continual process of conceptualizing the nature of the family’s behavior that guide questioning and interventions.

Milan Systemic: Communication about communication.

Milan Systemic: The therapist’s stance of being open to multiple hypotheses regarding the family’s behavior.

Milan Systemic: Either prescribing the symptom or asking the family not to change.

Milan Systemic: They Hallmark of the early Milan Systemic School. Positive Connotation illuminates upon circularity by assigning a positive motive or value to each family member’s behavior—whether it be a desirable or undesirable behavior.

Milan Systemic:
The manner in which individuals attribute their behaviors as a result of another’s behavior. For example, I only nag you cause you never offer to help.

Milan Systemic:
An intervention presented by a therapy team that is described in great detail, instructing various individuals within the family to carry-out specific behaviors and specific times of the day for a distinct period of time. They serve to provide consistency and clarity as to the hypothesized problem within the family.

Milan Systemic:
A team of therapists that strategically hypothesize and plan interventions regarding each particular family. Often, team members will watch therapy as it unfolds behind a one-way mirror as 1 or 2 therapists work directly with the family.

Later Milan Systemic: When parents struggle for control, they triangulate a symptomatic child who then works to defeat the parents.

Later Milan Systemic:
Typically during the 3rd session, the therapist(s) will instruct the mother and father to tell their family that they have a “secret,” and to then take a trip together, away from the family, for a few days. They are cautioned not to tell the family anything more than the mere fact that they have a secret prior to leaving.

Milan Systemic:
Suggesting that a family’s historic perception of a problem influences their current perspective on the problem, affecting their view of the past and present behavior. For example, if I perceive my mother as cold, I will only recall times in the past where my mother was cold and ignore current instances of my mother demonstrating warmth or compassion.

~each session had 5 tasks
~ only 10 sessions but each held 1 month apart
~ always team approach with 1 way mirror
~ emphasized epistemology as informing rules to keep families stuck
~ two primary interventions = positive connotation & ritual

Palazzo li & Prata:
- dirty game & invariant prescription

Boscolo & Cecchin:
- circular questioning (dropped paradox)