A series of articles has recently appeared in which implications of second-order cybernetics for the practice of family therapy have been discussed. In this article, we attempt to advance the discussion by addressing ideas that we think have not been adequately emphasized thus far. Specifically proposed are ideas about conditions that might facilitate the emergence of consciously pragmatic strategy informed by the kind of systemic wisdom that delicately balances natural systems without the benefit of human planning. It is argued that a shift in the personal habits of knowing and acting that typically organize individual human experience is required. After attempting to specify what this shift might involve, implications of these ideas for the practice of family therapy and for human action in general are discussed.
Conscious efforts to improve relationships may fall short because the skillful navigation of relationships depends as much on automatic internal processes that occur outside of awareness as it does on conscious intentional effort. A growing body of research suggests that a particular form of mental training, mindfulness meditation, may improve the way the brain automatically processes and organizes relationshiprelevant cognition and behavior. Mindfulness training appears to promote structural and functional changes in neural circuits that mediate attention, regulate physiology and emotion, and enhance or inhibit the capacity for empathy. After reviewing behavioral benefits and neural changes associated with mindfulness training, studies investigating the relationship between mindfulness and intimate relationship satisfaction and stability are examined. Efforts to integrate elements of mindfulness training into educational programs and therapies for couples are then reviewed.
Reservations about qualitative research often center around contentions that, since qualitative methods are so subjective and uncontrolled, the results of qualitative research are not valid and reliable. While many qualitative researchers in education have attempted to improve the trustworthiness of their results by making their methods more systematic, we argue that qualitative researchers cannot establish the trustworthiness of their findings, regardless of the methods they use. Rather, the legitimization of knowledge requires the judgment of an entire community of stakeholders. In the absence of certainty, knowledge is an ethical matter, one in which the judgement of each stakeholder must count.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.