Changing with Families - A Book About Further Education For Being Human

In the first phase of family therapy, the therapist works with family members to gather information which will help him to create an initial experience with them (Phase II) which can then serve as a model for them in their future growth and change. The question

which the therapist must face is: Which introductory experience will best serve as this model for the family? One of the major purposes of the therapist's actions during this phase is to determine exactly which experience he will, in fact, initially use as a model. We call this set of actions by the therapist determining the desired state. Essentially, the desired state is a description of one condition of living for the family which would satisfy the desires of the individual family members. In other words, one of the ways by which the therapist organizes his activities during this phase is to seek out the information which identifies for him the way the family members themselves want the family experience of living to be.

In the process of determining this desired state for the family, the therapist is listening and watching, experiencing the family fully as they begin to make known their hopes and fears about themselves as individuals and about the family as a whole. This identifies the second category of information that the therapist is seeking: information regarding the present state of the family. In order to act effectively in Phase II, the therapist needs to know not only what the family wants — which we will call the desired state — but also what resources the family has presently developed.

We emphasize that what we are calling the present state and the desired state are nominalizations. These nominalizations are useful only to the extent that the therapist and the family members understand that the present state is actually not a state but a process — the ongoing interaction and communication. Furthermore, the desired state — the experience which the family members and the therapist will create in Phase II — is actually the first step in the process of opening up the family system to the possibilities of growth and change.

What we have learned in our experience is that the desired state identified by members of the family with the therapist's help, no matter how different are the families themselves, is always a state in which all family members come to behave more congruently than they do in their present situation. Again, for us, congruency is a process — the ongoing process of learning and integration.

Which of the patterns of coping which the family arid its members present to the therapist can best serve as resources to create an environment for growth and change — whether or not the family members regard these process patterns as resources in the beginning? To create an effective model experience, the therapist needs to understand both the direction of change and the currently available resources of the people with whom he is working.

The third characteristic of creative, effective family therapy occurs during this phase when the therapist is working with the family members to prepare them to actively participate in creating the model experience. The act of participating in originating this experience will require that the family members act in ways which are different from the ones they have been using in the past. In other words, they will be taking risks. There are several specific ways in which the therapist can systematically assist the family members in making these revisions. First, the therapist works to build up the family members' trust in him as an agent of change. The therapist acts as a model of congruency by communicating congruently himself — all of the messages which he presents must match. The way in which he moves must match the sound of his voice, which matches the words which he uses, which match .... In addition, the therapist must be alert to identify each family member's most used representational system. When he has determined this, he can increase the confidence of each family member in him by shifting his own process words (predicates) to the representational system of the person to whom he is speaking. Even more effective than simply shifting his process words (predicates) to those of the family member with whom he is communicating, is for the highly skilled family therapist to vary the emphasis which he places on the types of communication systems which he selects to use with a particular family member. For example, with a family member whose most used representational system is visual, the deft therapist will communicate by using his body, hand and arm movements — any set of signals which the family member can see. With a family member whose primary system is kinesthetic, the therapist will make frequent physical contact, touching to communicate or emphasize certain points he wants to be sure the family member understands. The therapist uses his skills in communication both to set an example and to make explicit the process of effective communication. So, for example, when a family member presents the therapist with a verbal communication with a deletion which renders it unintelligible, the therapist requests the missing information rather than hallucinating what it might be. Or, if a family member is Mind Reading or communicating incongruently, the therapist may gracefully comment on it — demonstrating both the importance of the freedom to comment and the equal importance of clear communication to other family members. As he communicates, the therapist leaves space for the family members to respond, using polite commands (conversational postulates) and embedded questions. He shows that he values the family members' abilities to understand and participate in the ongoing process by inviting them to comment on exchanges between himself and another family member. By these techniques, he makes individual contact with each family member to develop their confidence in the therapist's skill as a communicator and as an agent of change.

The second major way in which the therapist acts to help the family members prepare for change is to share with the family member the information which he has gathered, smoothly using his communication skills to do this. Typically, the family members begin with a statement of what they want for themselves and their family; this statement invariably includes a nominalization. As the therapist gathers information, he is de-nominalizing; that is, he is turning the representation of an event into a process. One of the things which happen as he does this, and shares the information with the family members, is that the way the family got to the place where they are now is seen as a series of steps of a process. By coming to appreciate their own family history as an understandable, step-by-step process, the family members can have hopes about there being a next step in the process which will allow them to make the changes which they desire. The therapist

does not, of course, attempt to insure that each family member has the understanding which is his — his task is not to train family therapists. Neither does he keep relevant information from the family. Rather, using his skills as a communicator, the therapist presents to the family members the information each needs to understand that change is possible. As he shares his information about the process of communication in the family, the therapist describes what he experiences — he does not evaluate or make judgments about it. This distinction between the description of the process and the evaluation of other people's behavior is, in itself, an important learning tool for the family members.

One of the outcomes of the therapist's skillful use of representational systems, congruency and sharing of information with all family members, is that the family members come to understand and trust one another. We find it very rewarding when we are able, through our communication skills, to help one family member come to fully understand that another family member is not being malicious, or evil, or crazy when he does not understand the first member's communication, but, rather, that their communications are simply not making a connection with one another, as each is paying attention to a different part of their shared experience.

Contrary to what many people expect, difference itself can become an opportunity for growth; it contains the seeds of excitement and interest, and the challenge of new learning when guided in that direction. Difference can also, of course, be used negatively; then, sameness can be made a cementing factor. Both sameness and difference are essential, for they manifest the uniqueness of each human being. Much of the therapist's task is to balance these two qualities and, specifically, to use his skills to help the family members to convert the differences which previously caused them pain into an occasion for learning and growth.

When the therapist works with the family to help them to understand the process steps by which they got into their present situation, and teaches them the difference between descriptive and judgmental language, the family often discovers a crippling episode from the past, usually based on miscommunication. This encounter can be used to help them learn that any human experience from the past can be uncovered, understood and utilized.

The result of the processes of developing each family member's trust in the therapist as an agent of change and the therapist's sharing of the information with the family is that the family members become willing to take risks, to venture into unknown territory, and to attempt to build new bridges within the family. By carefully preparing the family members during Phase I, the therapist is able to engage the hopes, energy and creative participation of the family members in developing an experience which will serve as a model for them in their future growth.

Determining the Desired State

The presence of a family in a therapy session is a statement by that family that their present state — their present ways of coping, communicating and interacting — is unsatisfactory to them. It is a statement that the family recognizes, at some level, that there is a discrepancy between what their present experience as a family is and what they want for themselves. The typical case in our experience is the one characterized by the family arriving for the initial therapy session, each member having some idea of what it is that he wants to change. The initial focus of the therapist is to find out what those changes are. The simplest, and a very effective, way of doing this is for the therapist to introduce himself to each of the family members and to ask them what it is, specifically, that they want for themselves as individuals and for their family. This process is a model presented to the family to assist them in learning to make meaning congruently. The therapist understands that, while the content — the specific hopes of this particular family — is important, the way he secures this information, the powerful process of communication, is taking place at the unconscious level, with himself as the model.

What do you want for yourself and your family?

In what way, specifically, would you like you and your family to change?

What are you hoping for, for yourself and for your family, in therapy?

If you could make yourself and your family different in some way, what would that be?

If I were to give you a magic wand, how would you use it?

Any of these questions will start the process of determining the desired state for the family. As the family members begin to respond to the therapist's questions, they will, typically, present their ideas about what they want for themselves and their family in the form of a nominalization. For example, many families with whom we have worked state that they want more love, support, comfort, respect, etc. Each of these words is an event representation of a process, with most of the pieces of the process missing. The family members, sometimes, will begin by stating what they don't want. Using the linguistic patterns presented in Part I, the therapist works with the individual family members to secure positive statements of what they want — statements completely acknowledged by them of what each wants for himself.

As we pointed out in the first part of this book, nominalizations involve the language processes of deletion, lack of referential indices, and unspecified verbs. For a family member simply to say that he or she wants more love leaves out much necessary information — whom does this person want to love or to be loved by, and how, specifically, does this person want the other person (or people) to love him (or her)? By systematically identifying and challenging the deletions, lack of referential indices, unspecified verbs and nominalizations, the therapist gathers the information he needs to understand what the family members want.

During this phase of family therapy, the therapist is making use of his skills as a communicator to connect the words the family members use with what they want. The therapist has connected the family members' words with their experience (has adequately de-nomin-alized their speech) when his understanding is specific enough that he knows what observable behavior would indicate for that person what he really wants — when he would be able to act out some sequence of behavior with the family member which would be recognized as an example of what that individual desires.

Two general ways of proceeding to adequately connect language and experience (de-nominalization) are:

a) Employ the linguistic distinctions of deletion, lack of referential indices, unspecified verbs, nominalizations, and modal operators;

or

b) Have the family members act out a sequence of behavior which is an example of what they want.

These two general ways of starting the process of de-nominalization are, in our experience, more closely connected than the two categories would suggest. More specifically, when a family member is describing verbally what he wants or what stops him from getting what he wants, almost invariably both that person and the other family members will be acting out before your very eyes the thing being described. In other words, family members match their verbal communication with their nonverbal behavior. Knowing this, the therapist can accelerate the process of understanding what the family member wants by being sensitive to the non-verbal signals which are being sent at these points in the therapy session and then shifting to focus on that process. For us, these two ways of proceeding to connect language with experience are fully integrated. As a guide for ourselves in this area, we invent, both for us and for the family members, experiences which include as many of the sensory channels and representational systems as possible. This action, for us, is a basic assumption about what are the most effective conditions for learning and changing. By choosing to act out an experience, rather than simply to talk about it with the family, the therapist engages all of the family members' channels for experiences (visual, kinesthetic and auditory).

The process is complete when the therapist understands what kind of observable behavior is an adequate example of what the family member wants — in other words, the de-nominalization is complete when the therapist has established which experience (Complex Equivalence) counts for the family members as an example of what they want.

One of the major tasks for the therapist in Phase I is complete when he has successfully connected language with experience for each member of the family (de-nominalizations). However, there is one very important step remaining for the therapist in this area, as he is attempting to gather information regarding the desired state for the family as a unit. The de-nominalization for each of the family members may result in a set of experiences (Complex Equivalences) which are relatively unrelated. To establish, for the family as a unit, a desired state which will be helpful for the therapist to use to guide his behavior in creating a unified experience with the family, he works to find some way to coordinate the experiences which the family members want for themselves. In other words, he must choose a route to de-nominalization by which the individual experiences (Complex Equivalences) which they want will overlap, or, at least, will connect. Since the therapist is going to use these Complex Equivalences as the basis for creating an experience with the family in Phase II, these experiences to which the family members agree will have to fit together. In the process of delicately and gracefully integrating the different experiences wanted by the separate family members, whatever is common among those experiences will emerge naturally. In our experiences in family therapy, often the most diverse-sounding word descriptions, once connected with experience, will automatically merge for the family members involved.

The therapist can be sure that he has adequately connected the family members' words with experience (de-nominalized the family as a unit) when the result is a set of experiences (Complex Equivalences) which, themselves, connect. As the process continues, if the therapist notices that there is little connection among them, he might ask one of the family members to present (either as a verbal description or in any representational system, e.g., pictures, body movement, etc.) an example of an occasion when he failed to obtain the very thing he desired. As one of the family members does this, the therapist might then ask the others how the description or action being presented is connected with what they want (their de-nominalizations). In our experience, this has never failed to produce an overlap in the experiences (Complex Equivalences) which the different family members want.

The outcome of the process of making clear what each family member wants is that the therapist and the family both come to understand what the essential ingredients are of an experience which they will co-operatively build as a part of Phase II of the family therapy session. The set of overlapping experiences (Complex Equivalences) which result from connecting words with experience (de-nominalization) suggest the structure to be used for Phase II. Before the therapist and the family can begin effectively to construct this experience, one other class of information is necessary. Having a map of San Francisco is a valuable asset if you intend to visit and explore that city; however, the map is of little use unless you also know where you presently are in relation to San Francisco. Your map will be useful to you only if you can get to San Francisco from where you are now. The therapist's major task is to assist the family in moving from where they presently are to where they want to be. The other category of information necessary for the therapist is the present resources and current patterns of coping which now exist within the family.

Determining the Present State

(What is Currently Going On)

As the therapist employs the various ways of connecting language with experience and, at the same time, gathers the information necessary to understand the desired state of the family, he is engaged in the ongoing process of communicating with, observing and listening to the interaction of the various family members. Thus, while the focus of the content of Phase I is the desired state for the family, the process is the patterns of communication which are available within the family in its present state. Every verbal and nonverbal message of each family member and the verbal and non-verbal responses which those communications bring from the other family members constitute the process of coming to understand the family's present state.

The amount of communication which occurs in a family therapy session is enormous — it is, actually, much more than is needed for the therapist to determine the present state of the family system. With this in mind, we have isolated what we consider some of the more informative and distinctive features of family interaction; by isolating them, we are identifying one way for therapists to organize their experience in family therapy so that:

a) They will not be overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation;

And

b) They will detect the processes which will allow them to sufficiently understand the present state of the family system so that they may effectively create, with the family members, the experience in Phase II.

This is simply a way of saying that, in this phase, we are offering a model for family therapy which has been effective and useful in our experience; as with all models, it is neither exhaustive nor unique.

The first of these larger patterns is the calibrated communication cycles which already exist within the family. Typically, the calibrated loops which we encounter are already so established in the family process that the family members regard them as an unalterable part of their experience. Often, the very learning that these cycles can be changed is, perhaps, the most powerful information which we, as therapists, can provide for the family members. Our feeling is that, by understanding the underlying process by which these cycles of pain and miscommunication are created, we, as family therapists, can have more choices about the way in which we assist families both to overcome those loops already present in their system and to avoid forming new ones in the future. The general pattern of the process by which calibrated communication loops are formed in family systems can be represented as:

We discuss each of these steps in turn. The process most typically begins when some person in the family communicates incongruently; for example:

Mildred: ... I just wanted to help you out . . . (voice tone harsh, feet spread apart, standing, left arm extended with index finger pointing, shoulders hunched and tensed, breathing shallow, right hand balled into a fist placed on right hip,. . .

In the example given, the messages carried by the body posture and movements and the voice tonality match with each other but not with the words and syntax of the verbal communication — a classic case of incongruity. When faced with a communication such as this, the person (receiver) typically responds by deciding

(step 2 in the process) whether he will respond to the verbal message or the analogue messages.

…

George: (reducing his breathing, extending his hands toward Mildred, palms turned up, whining tonality) . . . I'm sorry, Mildred, I don't understand . . .

The other person in this family system decides to respond to the analogue portion of Mildred's incongruent communication. In this case, the decision is to give priority to the analogue messages arriving primarily through the visual channel rather than the auditory (verbal) channel. Now the process of generalization occurs; in this transcript, the person (George) becomes aware that he feels bad, and this is associated (consciously or not) with an entire set of experiences from the past, when Mildred has been angry with him and he has felt bad.

…

Therapist: . .. George, what are you aware of right now?

George: Well, my stomach's tight — I feel right bad. (turning to Mildred) Mildred, honey, I know that you are angry and . . .

The next step in the creation of a calibrated communication loop is the Complex Equivalence. The analogue signals or messages which George is attending to are accepted as being equivalent to the inner state labeled "anger" in Mildred. The process is completed with the next step, as George accepts the generalization of the Complex Equivalence itself — that is, anytime in the future that George detects the analogue messages described above from Mildred, he will "know" that she is angry. When this loop has been run often enough, the number of analogue cues which George will need to fire off this Complex Equivalence will be reduced. For example, we have encountered cases of calibrated communication in which the shrug of a shoulder, the change of a breathing pattern, or the shift of weight from one leg to another are messages sufficient to initiate a Complex Equivalence, with the accompanying Mind Reading and a calibrated loop. In each of these cases, the person doing the Mind Reading was wholly unaware of the observable portion of the Complex Equivalence — that is, the cue or signal which "gave" him the information was totally outside of his consciousness.

Another effective way of gathering information sufficient to understand the present state of the family system is to use as leads the nominalizations which the family members claim they want for themselves in the desired state. When a family member identifies the nominalization he wants for himself, he is, in effect, stating that he is not satisfied with what he is presently getting from the family in regard to this nominalization. Thus, as the therapist employs his skills to de-nominalize the family members' nominalizations into some set of Complex Equivalences which will identify actual, observable behavior, he can have the family member give (verbally or by acting out) an example of how what happens in his or her present experiences in the family stops him from getting what he wants. Almost invariably, in our experience, the family member presents a case of calibrated communication which is at the center of much pain and dissatisfaction in the family system.

The two strategies which we have just presented for gathering information necessary to understand the present state of the family system have in common the fact that they identify the patterns of calibrated communication. In our work, we have found that the therapist has information sufficient to understand the present state of the family system when he has identified the major ways in which the family members communicate in a calibrated fashion — the places in the family communication patterns in which there is little or no feedback. The set of calibrated loops in a family system is the set of rules for that system which the therapist needs to know about to understand the way in which the family is failing to cope. Rules or calibrated communication loops are what researchers in cybernetics called homeostatic mechanisms. Home-ostatic mechanisms are the processes by which a system, whether it is a simple system, such as one for temperature control, or a complex system such as that of a family, maintains itself in the same patterns of functioning and behavior. To change a system, it is necessary to change the homeostatic processes; that is, when the therapist in a family therapy session has identified the calibrated communication loops or rules, he has sufficient information about the present state of the system to effectively begin the process of creating with the family members the experience which they have identified as an example of the desired state for them.

Summary

There are three major parts of Phase I of family therapy, Gathering Information. These are:

1. Preparation of family members for creating an experience which will serve as a model for their future behavior;

2. Determining the desired state for the family system;

3. Determining the present state of the family system.

The therapist can effectively accomplish the first of these by working to create confidence and trust in him in the family members and by sharing the information he gathers, especially making sure that each of the family members comes to appreciate the process by which they have come to the situation in which they now find themselves and, thus, allowing them to understand that the change they will make is simply the next step in an ongoing process over which they can learn to exercise control. The main feature of the second part, that of determining the desired state for the family, is the connecting of words with specific experiences (de-nominalization of the nominalizations) which each of the family members brings to the session as his need or hope for himself and his family. The third part is achieved when the therapist has identified the calibrated communication loops which prevent the family from getting what they want for themselves. The therapist and the family members will have a clear direction, once they have determined the present and future states of the family system. This information, plus the family members' preparedness to accept risk, signals to the therapist that the first phase is complete and he may begin to create the explicit experience which will serve as a model for the future of the family system.

The description of Phase I above is an idealized version of our experience, as is any model; it is the minimum effective set of patterns which we have come to distill from our work in family therapy as adequate for Phase I. We have found it extremely useful in organizing our experiences in family therapy. We invite you to try it, change it, modify it in any way which makes it work for you, for your own personal style.

Once the therapist has gathered enough information to understand, at least to some degree, the present state of the family system, the state desired by the family, and how the present state, as a system, is closed to the experiences desired by the family members, then he is ready to help create that experience — to take the steps necessary to make it possible for the system to transform itself. When we are training family therapists, the most common complaint we receive is that there is too much to keep track of. The purpose of this book is to assist you in understanding which elements you should pay attention to and which are extraneous. All too often, family therapists expend their major resources in focusing on every detail of the content of the problems of family members. The family members, however, are calibrated to the problem — operating on expectations and calibrated loops — and, even though there may be three, four, five or more of them, they have found no solution. Why, then, does the therapist think he can do more? The therapist's advantage lies in the realization that he also has calibrations, and so he focuses, not on the problems and content, but on the processes of coping and communicating. This allows him to select useful information from the perspective of process, instead of being overwhelmed by detail. Transforming the system will entail change at the coping level, not at the content level. A change in the system of how the people in a family give and receive messages from one another is the goal of family therapy, not the solution of problems — the problems are too many. Every day, people need to learn about coping — they need new tools at the process level. So, the therapist gathers information: a set of hopes (nominalizations) which the family members want, such as more love, affection, privacy, freedom, trust, respect, responsibility, etc. The therapist needs to find out which input channels and which output channels are essential for the family members to know when they are getting what they want. Comparing what is wanted with what is presently possible to express, based on the forms of calibration which exist in the family as they communicate about what it is that they do want, gives the therapist important information. One way to accomplish this is for the therapist to pick one set of hopes (nominalizations) — a desired state for all family members and then to create, with the family, an experience in this set of hopes (nominalizations) by using all of the techniques which are described here. The result is not just a single experience outside of the system, but, rather, it is something which is more important. In order for the family members to go from their present state to a single experience in the desired state, they must first learn about changing. They will have to break some calibrated loops, open up some new channels; they will find out how all of this can be done by the therapist's becoming a model from which they can learn.

For example, the husband (Fred) wants more attention from his wife (Mary). Mary wants more respect from Fred and their daughter. Daughter Judy wants freedom and the understanding from her parents that she is almost an adult. This constitutes one set of information. When the therapist understands how Fred knows when he isn't getting attention from his wife, Mary — what she would be doing (saying, or acting) that would allow him to know he is getting attention —he has a linguistic de-nominalization of the desired state. The therapist needs this same information for each family member. Next, the therapist will have to discern what it is that prevents each family member from perceiving that he is getting what he wants, or what stops other family members from giving him what he wants. This is a second important set of information. For example, Fred might say, "I know my wife is paying attention to me when she is being affectionate and she is touching me." This means that all of the attention Mary gives Fred which is not kinesthetic (touching) is outside of Fred's experience. Presently, he can detect and appreciate attention only through his skin and not through his eyes. So, when Mary is paying attention to Fred but not touching him, he doesn't respond. The result is that Mary feels that Fred doesn't respect her.

These sets of information can be compared to help you understand this process of coping which is not coping at all with respect to the desires of the family members. The desired state is outside of the limits of a system which is closed in this way. The task of the therapist is to lead the family members to the experience of getting what they want with three general strategies:

a) Intervention by challenging fixed generalizations from the past (calibrated communication cycles);

b) Giving perspective of process (achieving meta-position to system processes);

c) Transforming the system by re-calibration.

These three tactics will overlap with respect to individual techniques, but the result will be to teach the family the skills of all three strategies, as well as helping them obtain what they desire. So, transforming a system is really adding to the system the tools necessary to achieve any desired state, by showing the family members how it can be done. The family will learn tools to break calibrated communication, tools to focus on process, and tools to communicate in new and more satisfying ways. This is what makes the task of a family therapist primarily that of an educator.

Tools for Intervening to Challenge Fixed Generalizations from the Past (Calibrated Communication Cycles)

In order for a therapist to help create an experience which is an example of the desired state but which is outside of the possibilities of the present state of the family system, calibrated loops will have to be broken. Family members will have to see, hear, and feel in new ways so that they can respond in these new ways. The transformations which are necessary for this to take place must start with the therapist. He will have to intervene in the ongoing process and provide new examples of how to respond and how to understand those new responses. Interventions which break calibrated loops can occur at any of the five transition points from which they were originally constructed:

1. Personal communicates incongruently;

2. Person B decides to which message he will respond;

3. Person B generalizes about his feelings and his decision about the messages;

4. Person B builds fixed generalizations (Complex Equivalences);

5. Person B Mind Reads Person A (is calibrated).

The therapist can intervene at one or more of these points. A complete intervention will require that the therapist break in cyclically through this process until the calibration is broken and the family members learn how to get feedback instead of calibrated communication. The particular content of the broken calibration is important only with respect to achieving the goal of providing an experience which is an example of the desired state. The real value of the intervention is the degree to which it teaches the family members that feedback will get them more of what they want than will calibrated communication and that they will learn much more about the other family members when they use feedback to break calibrated loops on their own.

Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Incongruity

Fred tells his wife, Mary: "I want you to be more loving with me." His tone of voice is harsh and demanding, his eyebrows are raised, and his head bobs up and down as he finishes with a sigh, as though he is scolding a child for the hundredth time about not doing his chores. Mary tightens up and moves back slightly in her chair. (The therapist recognizes this pattern from earlier discussions.) Mary, if the therapist permits it, will repeat her part of the calibration loops. She will respond to Fred's tone of voice and his body gestures by Mind Reading specifically that he is trying to "put her in her place." At this point, the therapist chooses to intervene at the transition point of Fred's incongruity. Since both Fred and Mary are calibrated in this content area, the task will be to break that calibrated loop for both of them. This has two steps: First, to teach Fred that the way he looks and sounds does not match his intent and his words — that his outsides do not match his insides — and to try to teach Fred to communicate both sets of messages congruently, one at a time, instead of incongruently, both at once. This teaches Fred a new way to communicate, and, at the same time, presents Mary with communication which doesn't have two conflicting messages from which she must choose.

Therapist: I heard you say in words that you wanted Mary to be more loving. I also heard a tone of voice and saw you move and gesture in a way which didn't look like you were loving when you said it to her. (The therapist demonstrates Fred's communication, exaggerating the analogue tones and gestures.) Could you put in words what you were feeling when you did this?

Fred: (sighing, as he recognizes the analogue communication) Yeah, well, it is like I've been through this before, and, well, I ask and she just pulls away from me anyway.

Therapist: So you're feeling kind of helpless, but at the same time you do want more loving actions from Mary?

Fred: Yeah, I guess I do feel kind of helpless (sounding and looking helpless).

The therapist at this point can make it even more of a learning experience for the family by presenting Fred with two examples of the same communication. For example:

Therapist: Fred, I understand now that you do feel sort of helpless when you try to communicate your desire for connection with Mary, and I would like to help you. When you ask for contact with Mary, for her to be more loving, you said she seems to just pull away more. Is that right?

Fred: Yes.

Therapist: Well, Fred, I am going to be you and you be Mary. I am going to ask you for contact for loving twice, once like I experienced you doing it, and once in another way. Would you just sit and watch and listen, and see if you can understand Mary's pulling away?

Fred: Sure.

The therapist then presents Fred with two models or examples of communication, one incongruent, the other congruent with matching tones, gestures and words. Then, the therapist asks Fred to try it in this new way. When he does this, Mary's response is to take his hand.

The point is that people are not aware of their incongruity, and intervention at this transition point provides an opportunity for learnings which can permeate any areas, independent of the specific content. The person who learns of his incongruity, as well as those who watch and listen to this process, discovers that there is more going on than he ever realized. This leads us to the second transition point at which a therapist can intervene to break calibrated loops.

Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Decision

When Fred initially made his first incongruent communication, Mary responded by tightening up — she was calibrated (operating on a fixed generalization from the past) to respond only to his analogue communication. As she observed the process of the therapist's teaching Fred about the difference between his intended message and the outside result, she was also learning about how she was calibrated to ignore other messages from Fred. She did not acknowledge his words, only his tone of voice and his gestures. In essence, she decided that the analogue message was the real message and responded only to it. The therapist could have chosen to intervene at this transition point first; for example:

Therapist: Mary, as I heard Fred ask for you to be more loving, I saw you flinch, and I'm wondering what you saw, heard, and felt as he said this.

Mary: Oh, he was just criticizing me again. I never am sensual enough for him.

Therapist: I heard him ask for something for himself. I wonder if you could say what made you feel as though he were criticizing you. Was it his tone of voice or the way he looked? Did you not believe what he was asking?

Mary: It was like he was yelling at me for making a mistake. Hummmm ... I guess I don't believe he was asking but that he was telling me.

Therapist: Would you like to check that out? I have a guess at this point in time that Fred has some trouble asking directly for things for himself, that maybe he believes he won't get it anyway, so he asks in a very clumsy way. I think that maybe you don't know how to understand any better than he knows how to ask. I think that there is something here for both of you to learn, if you would be willing. I would like to check it out with him and try to find some way through this block.

From this point, the therapist can teach Mary that both sets of messages she receives are valid, and that she has been responding only to one of them — to a gesture and tone which she doesn't understand. By asking, she can get helpful feedback; by continuing with the calibrated communication, she will only feel bad. At the same time, this teaches Fred that his message was clumsy, and that Mary's response was to his non-verbal message. Furthermore, his understanding of her response was a misinterpretation of her non-verbal message.

Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Generalization

The therapist may also choose to break the calibration at the transition point of generalization. When Mary heard Fred's incongruent communication, she made a decision to pay attention only to the non-verbal part of that communication. Just as Fred didn't understand that his output did not match his intent, so, too, Mary did not understand that her response did not match Fred's intent. His gestures and his tone of voice were not congruent for Mary with asking — they were congruent with her experience of demanding. She had the feeling that he was criticizing her, telling her that she felt a certain way, the way she feels when she is being criticized, and was demanding something, so she generalized.

Let's examine the process of generalization more closely.

1) Fred is incongruent in his communication, presenting Mary with sets of messages which do not match. Specifically, he consciously intends to ask her for more loving, and his words match his conscious intent; he also feels helpless, and this feeling (largely outside of awareness) is reflected in his tonality, body posture and gestures. . ..

2) Mary must now respond. She sees Fred's body posture and gestures and hears his tone of voice, and she responds to that set of messages rather than to his words.

3) In her past experience with Fred (and others), the tonality she presently hears and the body posture and gestures are associated with demands he has made on her.

4) Mary's decision in step (2) above, plus her past experience with the part of Fred's incongruent communication to which she is attending and responding, lead her to the generalization that Fred is demanding something from her.

5) In the past, these demands, for Mary, have been connected with feelings of helplessness and anger at the unfairness of being imposed upon. Her response to Fred, then, is based more on these past feelings of anger and helplessness than on the present time-place situation.

The therapist needs to be aware that surface communication often contains deeper messages which, if uncovered, can help to establish feedback. This process of generalization constitutes another transition point at which calibration can be broken. For example:

Therapist: Mary, as Fred just asked you a question, I was wondering what this was like for you. How did you feel as Fred just asked for you to be loving?

Mary: Well, I felt like he was scolding me, telling me what I should do.

Therapist: Could you say what made you feel that way?

Mary: Well, he looked disgusted and he sounded angry.

Therapist: How did you feel as he did this?

Mary: I guess I felt defensive, pushed.

Therapist: Mary, when you see Fred looking disgusted and sounding mad, as you described he just did, does that mean he is criticizing you and pushing you?

Mary: Of course; he does that kind of thing a lot.

Therapist: Oh, so that's it. Mary, have you ever had the experience of being disgusted with yourself, or mad at yourself, and so when you spoke to someone else, it didn't come off quite the way you meant?

Mary: Well, yes; but this is different — he does this a lot.

Therapist: You're so very sure? Is it possible that this big, strong guy over here maybe doesn't feel that strong on the inside, so, when he talks to you about something which is important to him, it doesn't come out quite right? Is that a possibility?

Mary: Well, I guess so.

Therapist: Would you like to find out? I have a hunch that when Fred feels low and looks and sounds like he just did, you take one look at him and go, "Oh, my God; what have I done now?"

Breaking calibrated communication at the transition point of generalization requires that the therapist have access to some experience which the family member has had which contradicts the generalization. Or the therapist can simply create one by checking out the generalization with the other family members. Generalization can also be broken linguistically by exaggeration. For example, the therapist could say:

Therapist: Mary, if you believe this, both you and Fred are in a real bind. Do you mean that Fred has to wear a perpetual smile and always sound happy or you're being criticized and demands put upon you? That sounds like a terrible burden for both of you. Is that what you're telling me?

Breaking Calibrated Communication Loops at the Transition Point of Fixed Generalizations from the Past (Complex Equivalence)

Fixed generalizations from the past is the next transition point in calibration loops and is also another juncture at which the therapist can intervene. Mary can be helped to build a program which, for the most part, will be outside of awareness, and which has the following steps:

When Mary thinks that someone is angry at her, she feels bad in a certain way. At some other point in time, when Fred is communicating with her, but he is not angry at her, if she feels bad in that same way, then she has a fixed generalization which says, "If I feel bad in this specific way, then Fred must be angry at me."

Mary has come to experience her world in a certain way, and she has learned to move in that world by paying attention exclusively to certain clues from outside of herself, while, at the same time, ignoring all of the other messages she is receiving. This limits what is possible for her to experience. By making it possible for Mary to accept and act on the other, presently unnoticed, clues, the therapist helps her to break the fixed generalization that has held her in bondage. In other words, when Fred is angry and demanding, he presents a whole set of messages. When he communicates incongruently, he presents a small part of the messages which he uses when he is angry. Mary is calibrated by fixed generalization to interpret any of the analogue communications which occur when Fred is angry to mean that he is angry. So, by her calibration, she responds to only a part of Fred's total message. One choice the therapist has here is to make the Complex Equivalence explicit — to label it — and then to demonstrate that it is not necessary and, in fact, distorts the communication process.

Mary: Yes, I know what he was saying: That I'm not good enough and he is tired of it and that I don't give enough.

Therapist: That isn't what I heard. What makes you think he means you're not good enough and that he is tired of it?

Mary: Well, look at him.

Therapist: What is it about the way he looks that makes you think he is tired of you and that you're not being good enough?

Mary: He always looks that way when he is tired of my making the same mistake, even when it is just not balancing my check book.

Therapist: So, if Fred makes that particular face, then anything he says means he is tired of your making

some mistake?

Mary: Yeah; well, it sounds kinda . . .

Therapist: What if he makes that face and tells you he has to go to the bathroom, is that your fault, too?

Mary: Well, no.

Therapist: Then it's not always?

Mary: No.

Therapist: Is it possible that Fred could mean something else and maybe you're just using that face as a way to be hard on yourself? Is that a possibility, maybe? (She nods "yes.") Let's find out, shall we?

Here the therapist has a chance to give new meaning and, therefore, new choices for responding to familiar behavior.

Breaking calibration loops in this way not only teaches that, just as family members are not mediums who can read minds, neither are they such good logicians, either. Most importantly, the therapist provides a model for family members to use when they have been — or suspect they have been — misunderstood. They learn that feedback works two ways, that uncovering the process beneath a response can be a tool to understanding as well as to being understood. The success of the therapist in breaking calibrated loops will be the model for family members later on, and the experience will also be an incentive for further change, especially when it is done lightly, gracefully, and without blame.

Once one of the calibrations is firmly enough established in the patterns of interaction of a family, the responses may be so programmed that, if one member does X, then another member automatically responds with Y. For example, the dialogue which occurs when one family member begins to speak and another member says, "I know what you're thinking; you don't have to tell me," is typical of what we term Mind Reading. At this point, the therapist has the choice of cutting into the Mind Reading just long enough to break the calibration. This simply may require repetitiously interrupting the pattern until the interruption itself becomes part of the process, so that intervention toward breaking the calibration can occur. For example, every time Amy begins to speak, her husband, Bill, starts to shake his head back and forth "no" before she has uttered more than half a word. Amy immediately flies into a rage, which is just what Bill claims he knew was going to happen. At this point, Amy tries to reply, stating that it is making her mad, but, as she begins to speak, Bill again starts to shake his head. In order to change this pattern, the therapist needs to interrupt long enough to gain the attention of the family members. For the therapist to make the same criticism as Amy offers would only serve to set up the same system for Bill with the therapist as he has with Amy. Here is where humor and pattern-interruption become powerful tools. The therapist tells both of them to stop.

Therapist: You said earlier, Bill, that you would like to get some peace and quiet and that you would like Amy to stop nagging you. Is that true?

Bill: That's what I said.

Therapist: I believe I can help you get it if you will try a little experiment with me. Are you willing?

Bill: Shoot.

Therapist: I would like you to place your hands on your head, one on each ear, and to do this tightly. If Amy begins to yell or nag, then clamp your hands down tight so you can't hear her. And, while you're doing this, you might use your hands to hold your head still, because I've noticed that, just as Amy begins to speak, your head rocks back and forth, and both of you get dizzy and start hallucinating. Do you know what I'm saying?

Bill: (chuckling, and Amy chuckling, too) All right, all right.

Therapist: Now, Amy, this is your big chance to say what you want to Bill, but remember, if you yell or nag, he will clamp his hands down. So, don't get dizzy, OK?

Amy: (laughing) He looks cute that way.

Therapist: I'm wondering if maybe he doesn't look like this most of the time to you?

Amy: Yes, I believe he does, but when I see it like this, I have to laugh instead of getting angry.

Therapist: OK. Now maybe we can begin to build some channels for you to really hear each other, but you will have to go slowly and not get dizzy for a change. Are you both willing?

This kind of pattern interruption (non-verbal exaggeration with humor) provides a vehicle to slow down the process long enough to get something new through the calibration loops. At the same time, another dimension can be added to the process, one which also affects the decision transition point by adding to the picture the message which was deleted by the calibration. For instance, in this particular case, the therapist might add these instructions to Bill:

Therapist: Now, Bill, as you hold your hands over your ears so you can protect yourself if Amy yells, I want you to repeat over and over, out loud, "Don't say anything bad or loud, I'm too fragile." And, Amy, as he does this, I want you to yell as loud as you need to in order to get Bill to hear you: "I'm not yelling; just listen to me, I'm not yelling." OK, now both of you do this at the same time.

The result of this kind of intervention is commonly that both family members have an experience which is familiar and, at the same time, humorous, with no blame, neither of them being the culprit. At the same time, they will get tired of the silliness and then will be ready to try a new way, after being presented with an exaggeration of the complete cycle all at once. The techniques for breaking calibrated Mind Reading are as numerous as the creativity of the therapist. The process, however, is always basically the same: To identify Mind Reading and make the process by which it occurred obvious enough to both parties that the need for feedback itself becomes apparent. We often end up saying to family members, "Do you have a license for fortune telling? Are you sure you have the credentials; I didn't know they were giving them out!" Then two things can be learned by the family members: First, how to break through calibration loops without blame, and, second, how to establish feedback. Breaking calibration loops opens the door for family members to begin to appreciate the different ways each family member gives and receives messages. The most important learning here is that what is intended is not always what is received. Or, as we like to say, the map is not the territory. When two people have different maps, they may not be of the same territory. If they then compare the differences without blame, the experience will provide a better guide for both travelers. Arguing about which map is the true map is a sure-fire sign that both individuals have forgotten that neither is.

Giving Perspective of Process

(Achieving Meta Position with Respect to System Process)

The three general strategies which we are presenting in this section will, to some extent, overlap; the difference will be more of the focus of teaching. They are provided as guides to organize your behavior, not distinctions in the territory which are isolated from one another. With this in mind, we turn, now, to the concept of assisting family members to gain perspective of system process. For a therapist to help family members to achieve this, he needs to put it in a concrete form so that the family members can understand it, and that they are given a chance to see, hear, and get their gut feelings involved. System process is the ways that all of the patterns which we are explaining in this book fit together. The therapist will be able to open up a family system only to the degree that he can represent to himself that the problem is not the problem — the patterns of coping are the source of the individual problems. So, when a family comes in and a wife says that her husband, Tom, is unreasonable because he refuses to let her go out and get a job and have a career of her own, and Tom loudly rebuts with: "Your responsibility is to the children at home, and there is no way that I will stand for your robbing them of having a mother and a secure childhood with contact and love" —

then the therapist's task is not to say who is right or who is wrong; it is not his domain to arrange a compromise. The resolution of the problem is not the main task of the therapist. Even if this problem is resolved, the calibrated communication which caused this problem will just produce another one. The task of the therapist, then, is to break the calibrated communication loops and to provide an environment for learnings about what choices and resources the family have which they can use to solve any specific problems. The therapist's jurisdiction is process, not content, the process of how each family member can achieve the hopes which the problem-solving represents (as an example). His task is to add to that process so the family members can resolve their own problems without further assistance. Then, each new conflict is an opportunity for every member to get what he wants. So, system process is the level of patterns to which the therapist is sensitive. He wants to understand what and how, not why. He strives to assist all members of the family in establishing feedback. If the family therapist does not operate at this level, he will get entangled and become part of the process, which will result in further difficulty.

For example: If the therapist were to ask Tom why he objected to Amy's going to work, Tom would probably elaborate on what he has already told the therapist and, in so doing, increase the demand on the therapist to judge who is right and who is wrong. Instead, if the therapist asks Tom how he is succeeding in his aim to give security to his children, and how Amy is in agreement with this aim, then the therapist's questions will yield information and awareness which will enable the pair to make a start in a new direction. Asking Tom why he does not want Amy to go to work only reinforces the old tendencies. The therapist, himself, needs to develop perspective at the process level. What this means is that the therapist must become freely involved, with his eyes, ears, and body responding to the family members, while, at the same time, remaining outside of their family system. The therapist is involved in the process of exploring, feeling his way, taking steps and risks. The family members are involved in content, trying to get their way, to look good, not to be at fault. They are trying to find a way to cope with today — the therapist is educating them with tools which will be resources for them for the rest of their lives. To provide learnings which will permeate a family system in this way, the therapist needs to add another dimension to the transformation of the family system. This is accomplished by simply providing the family members with a new perspective, a view from his eyes of their own system. Breaking the calibration will succeed only to the extent that family members learn that they must get feedback and break calibrated communication loops. Family therapy becomes even more pervasive when the therapist adds to this his own explicit perception of system process, from inside as well as from outside. Family members, involved in content with each other, at a point in time need to stop and tune in to process, to get a perspective which will enable them to go further. Staying with content has limited possibilities. Many content issues can be resolved with the new ways of coping, once the family members begin to understand their system and obtain the tools necessary to make it work for them. Our goal is to get as many of these tools in the hands of each family member as is possible. Our approach is that problems are endless. The therapist is in a no-win situation if he uses a "problem-centered" approach. Therefore, we use a "new-coping" approach. The problem is not the problem; coping is.

One of the most powerful techniques to achieve perspective of process of which we are aware at this time is sculpturing, by which the therapist translates the family's processes into body postures and movements which represent the communication he has observed in the session. For example:

A father, Jack, might start out standing erect, with a rigid body, his head tilted up, appearing super-reasonable, a pillar of strength which is impenetrable. As he does this, his wife, Joyce, is kneeling in front of him in a worshiping, admiring position, staring up. Meanwhile, one by one each of their three children climbs onto Jack's back, until he can no longer bear the weight and collapses to the floor. At this point, Joyce springs up, taking a blaming posture, pointing her finger, her nostrils flaring, until Jack finally struggles to his feet and becomes a stiff board again so Joyce can kneel and worship him.

This visual display presents family members with a picture of process. It allows them to see how the patterns of their communication cycle change the content while the process remains the same.

Added perspective can be achieved by the therapist's describing the process as he moves the family members through this physical, as well as visual, process:

Step One: Jack stands erect, Joyce kneeling, children beginning to climb on Jack.

Therapist: I see Joyce appearing to admire Jack's ability to hold things together, being so smart and being someone she can look up to, while the kids are pulling on him to get some attention because he is always so busy keeping things together, and you people want some connection with this big, strong, smart man. And he is tough to get through to, so you pull harder and climb on him more to get him to notice you. Maybe you get in trouble in school so he has to help you with your homework. Or, you could ask him a continuous stream of "why" questions, and, because he is so smart, he'll have to answer. Meanwhile, you, Joyce, look on, admiring his ability to hold things together, until Jack, who looks so sturdy, suddenly falls down and has another breakdown. Now you kids can have contact — he can spend time with you, but poor Joyce is abruptly thrown into the position of keeping everything together. And where is her big, strong man? He now needs her to take care of him, so she nags him and nags him and finally reproaches him into getting back on his feet. Finally, Jack gets so scared of what Joyce might do that he struggles up and pretends that he is as strong as an ox. Now, he has to leave behind him his connection with his children, because he has to work extra hard to make up for the time he was sick. You kids miss him, so you begin to climb on him once again.

This adds yet another dimension to the process picture. The therapist can go even further and ask family members to report on their internal experience as they move through this process ballet. Jack, for instance, who is standing strong and erect, might say he actually feels lonely and like a tree branch which is about to break. While Joyce is blaming a broken Jack, she might report that she isn't really mad but scared and desperate. This, too, can add perspective to process. It might be carried yet another step by asking each family member, in each position, what would take off the strain. Jack might ask Joyce to stand up and help him instead of admiring him. As she stands, she might say, "I always wanted to help you and be on the same level with you, but I thought you could only stay strong if you thought I was weak and needed you to be that way." This kind of perspective on process not only removes blame and breaks calibration, but it also gives the family members an awareness of the process. This provides yet another choice for the family members to focus on in times of trouble. Before, they only had one perspective, their own. Now they can add to that a perspective of process and an awareness of how each family member's perspective of the same process can be different.

A perspective of system process provides family members with a tool to use to share their different perspectives without fault-finding. This offers family members the opportunity to learn about the various choices available to them within their own family system to send and receive messages. They have a tool to comprehend these differences and to learn from them. Of course, not every family will achieve this perspective in one session; each family will develop a sense of process at its own speed, an inch at a time, and each inch will be valuable to them. The overall strategy of the therapist in assisting families to achieve this perspective requires that he is comfortable with being patient, and that he is able to tap the family's own sources of inventiveness to find ways of allowing them to achieve this perspective of process.

We wish to emphasize that the particular examples which we have presented here are precisely that — examples. Our hope is that each of you will use your ability to create interesting and dynamic variations on these examples. However, we would make two suggestions:

1) Fully use the skills and resources of the family members. For example, if a family member is a sculptor or painter, or a musician, encourage them to use those mediums for learning.

2) Involve the maximum number of channels for learning when creating an experience — all of the input channels (the senses), all of the representational systems, and all of the output channels. Using this principle will encourage maximum learning by all of the family members.

The crises which occur in families present all of the members with situations in which they struggle to maintain a sense of self-worth. They are caught in a vortex. It is up to you, the therapist, to distill from the data the process description in clusters of information, and to present it in a non-judgmental way, so that, instead of having to understand innumerable bits of content, the family members need only to cope with three or four steps of process. They then can gain a perspective from which to start to grow.

Transforming the System by Re-calibration

Although the most well-formed outcome of family therapy is a completely open system, with perspective, feedback, freedom to explore and take new steps, this is not achieved by the therapist's attacking and breaking calibration loops at random like a bull in a china shop. A family system is a delicate structure which serves as the basis for interaction of a group of human beings who are not perfect and who don't need to be. Who can become enlightened overnight? Patience is a prime tool for the successful family therapist. It is not our job to thoroughly transform an individual family member. This could well result in that member's becoming alien to the system, thereby placing even more stress on it. The family therapist's task, rather, is to transform the system as a whole to a point wherein stress and strain are reduced, and nurturing and support can develop, so that all family members can continue to grow. Family therapists should not be trying to gain every possible inch from every family member, but, rather, they should be feeling their way, looking for a minimum amount of change for maximum results, while, at the same time, teaching family members how to use feedback instead of calibration and how to achieve perspective of system process.

Concentrating on achieving the maximum amount of change with a particular family member can result in skewing the system. Each family already has the possibility of change; our task is to increase those possibilities, those choices for growth and change for all family members. One of the most delightful experiences we can have and one which we continually work to create is that which we call the snowball effect — a therapeutic intervention which results in the family members' taking charge of the process of change themselves. Too rapid a change will disrupt the family system; too slow a change will discourage the members of the family who desperately want some new choices and experiences for themselves. This is the trickiest part of family therapy, to evolve the system as a whole to a point at which it provides a solid foundation of support among family members who have the tools with which to proceed in a certain direction. This is the state wherein individual family members feel free to make choices for themselves. The therapist should realize that family therapy is based upon the understanding that every change in any member of a family system has a ripple effect on every other family member. So, if little Johnny, say, is catatonic, to focus our energies on curing Johnny's symptoms will be futile, since, as soon as he returns to the family system, he will respond to that system in the same old ways, unless the patterns of that system have been changed.

Actually, focusing on the family member who has the symptoms is taking the hard path. In order for Johnny to overcome his catatonia directly, he will have to change a tremendous amount and in many ways, especially if the change is to survive when he returns to the original family system. However, if each member of the system changes only a small amount, in a few ways, then the result is that the changes will permeate the system, and Johnny's symptoms will become unnecessary. Checking this principle is easy if you review your own experience. If you have left home and gone to college or gone in the service, or even moved away and then returned to visit your original family or old friends, you can remember how all of you had evolved and changed. So, at first, it was an awkward situation for you, and, in some cases, it may have remained that way. You returned alien to the former system, and this is just what we must avoid in family therapy if the result is to be an environment in which every member can be nurtured and can grow from the foundation of support for each which the family system will provide.

Imagine that you are standing in front of a stack of glasses, water glasses, which have been carefully placed in a pyramid so that each row of glasses supports the row above it. The top row has one glass, the next row has four glasses, the next row has nine glasses, and the one underneath that row has sixteen glasses. Each row of glasses provides a structure to support all of the glasses above it. If you wanted to take these same glasses and build a new structure which would give you greater choices about how you approached the task of getting a glass, you would not start by pulling glasses from the bottom row; you would not even take all the ones on the left. You would have to start at the top, working down a row at a time, or you would have only destruction. This is somewhat similar to how a therapist should proceed through a family therapy session. Viewing the family through the metaphor of the pyramid of glasses will help to remind the therapist that he should not succumb to the temptation to remove the glass with the smudge on it without any reference to the possible effect of his action on the other glasses.

To organize this process, you can make a rule that every interaction which opens a door or breaks a calibration must be understood by all the family members who observed it. It goes something like this:

The therapist has an interchange with the husband/ father and breaks a calibrated loop which the father has about his son's communication. The therapist then turns to the son to make sure that the boy has also broken his part of the calibrated loop and understands that the father has changed (re-calibrated). The next step is for the therapist to address himself to the mother, who has been observing, and to assist her in understanding and accepting the change in the relationship between her husband and her son. This cycle goes on, each step leading to the next, and all members tuning in as changes occur. This process also accompanies moves to achieve perspective with respect to family process, rotating from person to person, breaking calibrated loops and then re-calibrating the rest of the system to this new part. The whole process of transformation then becomes, in a sense, a new chain in which each link now connects with the next one. This guides the therapist in establishing the best speed and direction for that particular family's system. It provides a safeguard against random jumps which might unbalance the system. Thus, breaking calibration, achieving perspective with respect to family process, and constant forging of new links in the family system are the structure and strategies which weave together the individual interventions to transformation of a family system. These constitute the second phase of a family therapy session, and they also build the road which leads to the third and final stage of a family endeavor. In a sense, we, as therapists, work to reclaim the banished parts, to awaken the sleeping parts, and to connect these newly available assets for greater energy and strength. Thus, we are not really adding anything to the family system; we are only making available to the family members for new uses the resources which were already there.

In the third and final phase of the family therapy session, the therapist works to consolidate the changes which the family members created as part of the model experience in Phase II. We have identified three parts to this phase:

1) Review of process of the family therapy session;

2) Getting feedback regarding the process from each member;

3) Developing and assigning homework.

This final phase is an important step in each session, whether or not the specific experience which the family members and the therapist identified in Phase I actually happened in full detail in Phase II. The fact that the family members and the therapist have been engaged in the process of working cooperatively to create something for themselves, is the foundation of every session. Again, the process is the foundation for change, not the specific content. Seen from this perspective, each interview session has a life of its own; it has a wholeness of its own. Continuity is established by developing new building blocks at each meeting of the therapist with the family.

The purpose of the therapist's actions in this, the final phase of the session, is to assist the family members in solidifying the gains which they secured for themselves in the session, in effect building a new family history, which now becomes a base for new confidence in taking risks to change and grow. Verily, family therapy occurs in the real world, with real time constraints. But, when a family therapy session is over, the family members have the opportunity to try their new wings on their own. The therapist works to create the conditions which will make it possible for the family to continue the process of change between sessions — the returning family will be different from the departing one.

Review of the Process of the Session

A family has just involved themselves in a therapeutic session whose announced purpose is to assist the family in change. As we emphasized in our presentation of Phases I and II, the key to effective intervention by the family therapist is identifying and breaking calibrated loops in the communication patterns existing among the family members — that is, supplying explicit, conscious feedback in the patterns of family communication where it no longer exists. This review has, essentially, the same elements of process, the process by which the therapist, again acting as a model of congruent communication, provides specific feedback about the session to the family members. This review of the therapeutic session by the therapist is consistent with the principle of assisting the family members in coming to understand the process by which they arrived at the place where they are now. The therapist begins his review by reminding the family members of the state which they were in when they first came to this therapy session, and then, step by step, he recounts the processes which have occurred: What happened during Phase I, the ways in which they all worked together to understand what they wanted, and then prepared to create a new experience in growth for themselves; what happened in Phase II, actions specific to the therapist and to each of the family members.

This review gives the therapist the opportunity to teach the family members his understanding of his experience in working together with them for change. He identifies the steps which he considers important in the process of family change, e.g., the identification of calibrated communication loops. He states how, in his perception of the process, the family members worked cooperatively to create new choices for themselves. He carefully enumerates the steps taken by the family in the process of gaining these new options. By this description of the process of the therapeutic session, the therapist makes explicit the tools and skills which the family needs to continue the process of growth and change which they have begun. In our experience, the most desirable outcome of a family therapy session is not simply achieving an experience which the family can use for future growth, but also is understanding that experience, and learning the specific tools which the therapist and the family members employed in the process of its creation. More desirable than just creating an experience of what they want is the explicit learning of the skills necessary to give them new ways of communicating as a family. When this last kind of learning occurs, they move to a truly open system, one which allows them to cope creatively and effectively with any disturbances which might arise, regardless of

content, a system which has, and can continue, to use effectively the patterns of coping which they, themselves, have established. The outcome which delights us the most is a family therapy session which ends with the members understanding the process which occurred in it (thereby determining the direction for continued change by identifying the next step) and explicitly learning the tools/ skills/steps in the process. Such a session affords us the opportunity provided by the experience of entering a room with closed windows, opening the windows and discovering yet another room with closed windows but also with the keys (tools) needed to enter the next one and the next one.

Getting Feedback from Family Members

Consistent with the principles of acting as a model for effective, clear communication, is the therapist's recognition that the process of feedback in an open system flows in both directions; thus, he insures that each and every family member has the opportunity to comment on his experience of the process of the therapeutic session. At the same time, of course, this checking-out with each family member allows the therapist and the other family members to comprehend the changes they have begun, to understand the way in which they can make meaning out of the process which they have been experiencing in the session, and to appreciate how they have learned the tools of the process of change. During this time, in addition to commenting on the session, the individual family members have the opportunity to ask questions to clarify portions of their experience which they do not fully understand, thus making available to them the tools which they need for further growth, and, thereby, breaking the last of their old rules. This activity also provides the therapist with a chance to help them to make sense out of their experience of the process of change in which they have involved themselves, and, further, allows him to change and to understand the new choices now available for himself. If we finish a session and have failed to learn something from it, we take it as a message that, somehow, we were out of tune with this family.

Homework

The process of change and growth for the family which begins in the therapeutic session does not stop when the session comes to an end. As the family returns to their home, the experiences which they created with the therapist in the family therapy session serve as a model for further change. One of the things which the therapist strives to accomplish in his review is to present the process of change which was begun in the session in such a way that the next step in the ongoing process is apparent; thus, the family will be conscious of how they may choose to continue their growth after the session.

We have distinguished three kinds of homework assignments which we have found useful in our family therapy work. The first assignment is for the family to set aside a specific time and place in their home wherein they can practice what we call interrupt signals. When the family leaves the therapeutic session, no matter how effective, dramatic and far-reaching are the changes which they succeeded in making, they return to an environment which is associated in their experience with the patterns of calibrated communication which they are changing. The physical surroundings, alone, are a powerful stimulus for the re-activation of the cycles which have caused them so much pain and dissatisfaction in the past. In addition to the tangible environment, the experiences associated with work and school, and the everyday activities of daily life today, conspire to activate the old destructive patterns. Interrupt signals are cues upon which the family members agree (usually selected by them just prior to ending a therapeutic session) and which any member of the family may use whenever he detects one of the patterns of calibrated communication which they have been working to change. The therapist should be alert to assist the family members in selecting appropriate signals. These cues are chosen by considering:

a) The calibration pattern to be interrupted;

b) The capabilities of the family members involved.

For example, if the pattern to be interrupted is one in which a family member refuses to listen to the other members of the family, then an interrupt signal which is auditory will fail to be effective, while a kinesthetic and/or visual signal would be appropriate. An example of the way the therapist should consider the capabilities of the individual family members is the one which we use in families with children. We have found it more effective to plan interrupt signals which do not depend upon verbal skills. In our experience, the use of sculpturing postures as an interrupt signal for families with youngsters has been very effective. We have found that this cue, once properly selected, must be practiced by the family. By setting aside a specific time and place for practice in interrupting the destructive patterns, the family members are more likely to be able to use them effectively under stress, when they are actually needed. The practice sessions for interrupt signals can provide an occasion for fun and laughter for the family when approached as a form of entertainment or as a game.

The second class of homework is scheduled times and places for the family members to practice the specific forms of feedback which they have developed in the therapeutic session to replace the calibrated communication loops which they succeeded in changing. During these sessions, the family members create, by acting out experiences which were formerly connected with the calibration loops, by fantasy role-playing (fantasizing, and then presenting situations in which the family members can imagine the former calibration loops' being activated), or by any other means which they are able to develop so that they can give each other feedback. We suggest to families that, during these exercises, one of the family members not involve himself directly in the feedback exercise, but, at its conclusion, offer feedback to the other members who were directly interacting and providing simultaneous feedback. This outside member also has the agreed-upon authority to stop the exercise if he decides that the feedback is being changed once again into a form of calibrated communication.

The third kind of homework which we have found useful is scheduled sessions in which the family explicitly review the tools/skills/steps in the process of change in which they are all involved. This kind of exercise is different from the second kind in that the family members are not practicing specific kinds of feedback in specific kinds of situations, but, rather, they are identifying and using the techniques of change at the level of coping. For example, the family might discuss and role-play the way in which they, along with the therapist, discovered and broke a calibrated communication loop in their last therapeutic session. Then, the family members apply the specific process steps which they have identified in that experience to their ongoing interaction since the last therapeutic session, attempting to become aware of, and break, additional calibrated loops. Again, in this type of exercise, we suggest that one of the family members remain outside of direct involvement in the process for control over the whole. This kind of exercise is designed explicitly to continue the process of change, and to give the family members the skills they need to open up their present system. We call this the process of becoming congruent — the process in which people who formerly felt compelled now feel free to choose. Risk-taking becomes the order of the day; the opportunity to try new things is shared, when love, caring, excitement — all become a part of what we believe is the ultimate meaning of living.