Dysfunctional Transactions and Therapeutic Functions: An Evolutive Model

Abstract

The present study is a result of a n interdisciplinary team's work, where a physicist, a family therapist and a developmental psychologist try to share their knowledge and epistemologies. I n this kind of conflictual companionship, models of one discipline are tentatively applied to another This doesn't imply that the different disciplines are isomorphic, but it provides for unusual frames of reference: questions, possibly essential ones, are reformulated in a new language, or in a perspective which was not accessible within the conceptual framework developed for one particular discipline. Our experience is that this kind of effort, in itself a provocative learning experience, is also conducive to original tentative answers i n all disciplines involved. Be they of theoretical or experimental nature, it is then up to the specialists of these disciplines to validate the evolved propositions in terms of their own categories.The notion of symptom* as dual norm behavior is not new. Many researchers, amongst them Bateson, Haley, and Watzlawick, have been intrigued by the paradoxical nature of symptoms. Recent models have lead to a structurally oriented view of the family, where interactive patterns are analyzed in terms of a rule hierarchy . One can thus consider the symptom as an attempt to obey simultaneously two incompatible rules of different logical level; this representation accounts for the russelien paradoxical quality of symptoms.

Documenting a Time‐Bound, Circular View of Hierarchies: A Microanalysis of Parent‐Infant Dyadic Interaction

“…Our common endeavor involves interdisciplinary work between physics, developmental psychology, and psychiatry to develop models of change and stabilization processes. This is formulated in a meta‐theory called the evolutionary paradigm , the description of which is available in a monograph (24) and in several articles (for example, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25). In addition, each of us has carried out specific empirical studies in co‐evolutive systems—parent‐offspring (13, 20), teacher‐student (23), and therapist‐family (32, 33).…”

Fusion, Compression, Diversion, and the Workings of Paradox: A Theory of Therapeutic/Systemic Change

“…This process occurs constantly in a society in which certain behaviors are condoned, others are punished, and people and families who lose contact with external (usually supportive) systems can fall into patterns of dysfunction — essentially, reaching a state of “powerlessness” (59, 60). In a sense, the external or ecosystem (6) either “parallels” or diverts a pattern or orbit, thereby strengthening or weakening it — a notion also hinted at by Fivaz and associates (34). Hierarchy can thus be seen as the extent to which outsiders (particularly those in “high status”) reinforce or undercut family members such as parents.…”