Changing Unmet Expectations in Therapy

by  John Banmen

Without expectations, life might be boring. We all seem to have them and use them to make our lives more meaningful. When expectations are unmet, people often react negatively. Many clients seem to hold on to their unmet expectations and the reactions that follow.

From the Satir Model’s perspective, we talk about three forms of expectations:
1. expectations we have of ourselves;
2. expectations we have of others; and
3. expectations others have of us.

From early childhood we have daily expectations to handle. In an ordinary life cycle most expectations are dealt with in a healthy, satisfactory way. Unmet expectations often manifest themselves as disappointments, sadness, anger, hurt, even helplessness and low self-esteem.

When these unmet expectations trigger people’s reactive feelings such as hurt, anger and fear, clients bring these feelings into their therapy sessions. Unfortunately, some therapy models and numerous therapists spend session after session exploring and reliving these feelings without transforming them, only reducing, at best, the intensity of the feelings.

The Satir Model uses a direct experiential approach of surfacing and facing the unmet expectations and resolving them in a way that provides greater harmony internally and externally between people.

Instead of ignoring one’s unmet expectations, or reacting with feelings like anger, or blaming others for not living up to one’s expectations, we have some positive choices available for our clients.

Here I am proposing five ways of helping your clients with their unmet
expectations.

1. “Let go of your unmet expectations.”
   Letting go of what the client wanted often triggers some sense of loss. By accepting oneself and accepting the situation without necessarily liking it, one can also deal with the loss, and appreciate what one has and is. This process works well if done in a experiential way.
2. “Find alternatives to meet your unmet expectations.”
   For example, if the client wants something and it is not available either from the past or in the present, the client is encouraged to explore alternatives to satisfy one’s unmet expectations. Finding and implementing alternatives to unmet expectations can become a healthy way of dealing with one’s daily life.
3. “Decide to hold on to your unmet expectations.”
   If clients are not willing to let go or find alternatives to their unmet expectations, it is important to explore the costs to the client and possible “payoffs”. You help the client explore and accept the cost to themselves and possibly to others without forcing them to change. Don’t push them, don’t criticize them, honour their choice even if you do not agree with their decision. I have found that many clients who explore the cost of holding on to their unmet expectations are, at a later session, very open to letting go and deal with their disappointment, hurt and anger, and then find healthy ways to meet their needs.
4. “Go to your yearnings.”
   Expectations are usually person and situation specific. By helping clients experience their deepest longings, such as the universal yearnings for love, acceptance, belonging, security or freedom, you can help the clients to find a way to fulfil their yearnings in a realistic and healthy way. They then might be able to let go of the specific unmet expectation which has been causing their reactions. For example, “I want and expect some approval and acceptance from Peter.” By going deeper and realizing that the client wants approval and acceptance, but that he can get it from people other than Peter and from himself would illustrate the concept of meeting yearnings.
5. “Work on meeting your expectations.”
   Often clients need some help in believing in themselves or possibly help in resolving an old belief, i.e., “I’m too old to go back to school to fulfill an expectation.” Therapists can be very helpful in helping clients meet their realistic expectations.

We have found that working with unmet expectations experientially gets us quick results and helps the clients take greater responsibility for their life.

An Application of Satir’s Systematic Brief Therapy

by Nora (Noni) Caflisch

This paper will explore the Satir Model of therapy and the transformational change brought about in an individual’s personal growth through involvement in the Satir Systemic Brief Therapy.

Virginia Satir, the creator of Satir Systemic Brief Therapy, was born in Wisconsin in 1916. Her career as a therapist spanned forty-five years until her death in1988. She dedicated her life to helping people grow and heal. She has been sited as “one of the most influential modern psychologists and a founder of family therapy.” (www.geocities.com/socialworkontheweb/satir.html 06/08/04).

Virginia Satir’s vision was to help guide people to reach their full potential. As a therapist she developed process-oriented systems to lead people to tap into their internal resources to create external changes. She believed that people’s internal view of themselves, their sense of self-worth, was the underlying root of their problems.

Satir’s systems were all based around looking clearly and congruently inward at oneself to view how we originally learned to cope with our world. She believed that the problem was not the problem but how one coped with the problem was the problem.

Satir developed and named four stances for viewing how one copes or originally learned to survive. Her systems included family mapping, family reconstruction, the iceberg model, the parts party, a self-mandala of universal human resources, and sculpting in which a person can express, define and explain their inner landscapes. This paper will follow an individual’s personal growth through their involvement with and learning of the Satir approach to therapy.

Virginia Satir “shied away from the illness-centered approach of the Freudian school of psychology, and instead placed emphasis on personal growth.”(www.plebius.org/Virginia+Satir 06/08/04). She developed a personal and unique style of therapy over the course of her forty-five year career. At the core of her beliefs was that all behavior was learned and therefore could be unlearned making personal growth and change possible. Her vision was to help people to reach their full potential. She encouraged people to “find what she called their wisdom box-their sense of worth, hope, acceptance of self, empowerment, and ability to be responsible and make choices.” (Satir et al., 1991 p.4)

She believed that to heal the self, to heal the family, was ultimately to heal the world. To this end she formed the Avanta Network. Almost twenty years after her death, Avanta and its affiliate organizations all over the world continue Satir’s work in training, supporting and encouraging therapists, individuals and organizations towards personal growth and ultimately world growth.

The Satir growth model is based on her belief that humans have the “ability to change, expand, and manifest growth. Along with love, discovery of and the freedom to express one’s feelings and differences are major components of the model.” (Satir et al., 1991 p.16)

Satir’s therapeutic beliefs form the basis of her growth model. Her “growth model looks at human beings in the form of wholeness -the integration between body, mind, and spirit-the fundamental characteristic of the universe.” (Cheung, M., 1997) The common beliefs and principles of the Satir growth model are as follows:

1. Change is possible. Even if external change is limited, internal change is possible.
2. Parents do the best they can at any given time.
3. We all have the internal resources we need to cope successfully and to grow.
4. We have choices, especially in terms of responding to stress instead of reacting to situations.
5. Therapy needs to focus on health and possibilities instead of pathology.
6. Hope is a significant component or ingredient for change.
7. People connect on the basis of being similar and grow on the basis of being different.
8. A major goal of therapy is to become our own choice makers.
9. We are all manifestations of the same life force.
10. Most people choose familiarity over comfort, especially during times of stress.
11. The problem is not the problem; coping is the problem.
12. Feelings belong to us. We all have them.
13. People are basically good. To connect with and validate their own self-worth, they need to find their own inner treasure.
14. Parents often repeat the familiar patterns from their growing up times, even if the patterns are dysfunctional.
15. We cannot change past events, only the effects they have on us.
16. Appreciating and accepting the past increases our ability to manage our present.
17. One goal in moving toward wholeness is to accept our parental figures as people and meet them at their level of personhood rather than only in their roles.
18. Coping is the manifestation of our level of self-worth. The higher our self-worth, the more wholesome our coping.
19. Human processes are universal and therefore occur in different settings, cultures, and circumstances.
20. Process is the avenue of change. Content forms the context in which change can take place.
    
21. Congruence and high self-esteem are major goals in the Satir model.
    
22. Healthy human relationships are built on equality of value. (Satir et al., 1991 p.16)

As stated above one of the major goals of the Satir growth model is high self-esteem. Though Satir used the terms self-worth and self-esteem interchangeably, the author does not agree that these terms hold the same meaning. Satir defined self-worth and self-esteem as “the ability to value one’s self and to treat oneself with dignity, love, and reality.”(Satir, 1988, p.22) The author agrees that while the above definition is for self-worth, self-esteem is much less intrinsic. The author maintains that a person could hold them self in a very high level of esteem and yet have a very low sense of self-worth. For the purpose of this paper, the term self-worth will be used. Satir also uses the term “pot” to refer to a person’s feeling of self-worth. This term grew into a metaphor for self-worth from a story she would tell about a huge black iron pot that was used for a variety of purposes in her family home. The family question was “What is the pot now full of and how full is it?” (Satir, 1988, p.20) In her practice “as with my old family pot, the questions are: is my self-worth negative or positive at this point, and how much of it is there?” (Satir, 1988, p.21) Satir believed people that feel little self-worth open their way to becoming a victim, they depreciate themselves and they depreciate others. In doing so they create a psychological wall around themselves, hide behind and then deny that they are doing it. In Satir’s growth model, her goal was to help a client reach their own source of personal energy by sifting through all the internal messages and stored resentments that stood as a psychological wall in the way of the client’s positive feelings of self-worth.

“When I approach the matter of making change, I look in four directions:

1. How do I feel about myself? (Self-esteem)
2. How do I get my meaning across to others? (Communication)
3. How do I treat my feelings? Do I own them or put them on someone else? Do I act as though I have feelings that I do not or that I have feeling that I really don’t have? (Rules)
4. How do I react to doing things that are new and different? (Taking risks)

“One change already influences other parts. That means we can start anywhere..” (Satir, 1976) “Congruent communication holds the opportunities for developing self-worth.” (Satir et al., 1991 p.111)

Satir held that “the power in congruence comes through the connectedness of your words matching your feelings, your body and facial expressions matching your words, and your actions fitting all.” (Satir, 1976)

To achieve a congruent stance was the ultimate goal of Satir therapy and will be discussed further in the section on coping stances. She believed that a growing awareness of language and communication would lead to increased congruence “because language reflects a person’s cognition and affect, changing one’s language changes one’s perception.” (Cheung, M. 1997)

Satir thought that even paying close attention to how one uses the words I, You, They, It, But, Yes, No, Always, Never, and Should would be a step towards becoming more congruent. Satir maintained that communication was “the largest single factor determining what kind of relationship one makes with others and what happens to one in the world.” (Satir, 1972, p.30)

“One of the most important approaches of Satir’s model is the focus on question and answer approach regarding what one sees, what feelings one has, what feelings follow the initial feelings, and what meaning one makes of it becomes a major tool with which to transform old coping patterns into more congruent, healthy relationships.” (www.web8.epnet.com 03/08/04) Satir believed that coping patterns learned initially in the family setting often became our problem as adults or in the family we produce. “Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem. Coping is the outcome of self-worth, rules of the family systems, and links to the outside world.” (www.plebius.org/Virginia+Satir 06/08/04)

Satir developed what she called survival stances to demonstrate how people cope with problems. The four survival stances are placating, blaming, being super-reasonable, and being irrelevant. She thought that these stances “originated from a state of low self-worth and imbalance, in which people give their power to someone or something else. People adopt survival stances to protect their self-worth against verbal and nonverbal, perceived and presumed threats.” (Satir et al., 1991 p.31) She illustrated each of the stances in a circular diagram divided into thirds with context, self and others each taking up one-third of the circle. She also developed body positions to illustrate each of the stances. When the subjects were physically sculpted into their stance the feelings generated in the overall family sculpt were explored.

Placating
A person who has a placating stance views others and context to hold more value than their own true feelings. They are nice when they do not feel nice, they take the blame when things go wrong, they try to alleviate others problems and pain. Their inner monologue sounds like- “I am not important.”

 "Everything is my fault." "I should always do for others." 

“In a typical placating stance, we kneel, extend one hand upward in supplication, and clamp the other hand firmly over our heart. This gesture exemplifies that “I want to do everything for you, and if you see me protecting my heart, maybe you won’t kill me.” ” (Satir et al., 1991, p.37) (Satir et al., 1991 p.38)

Physiological affects that placators typically experience are digestive tract disorders, migraines, and constipation.

Blaming
A person who has a blaming stance discounts others and counts only the self and context. They hold the belief that they must not be weak, they harass and accuse others for continually making things go wrong. Their inner monologue sounds like-

 "If it wasn't for….I wouldn't be in this mess." "I'll beat the…out of you!

In the blaming physical sculpt, “we stand with our back straight and point a fully outstretched finger at someone. To help scare people, we put one foot out; to balance, we put the other hand on our hip. We raise or furrow our brow, and we tighten our facial muscles.” (Satir et at, 1991 p.43) A blamer typically draws in a skimpy breath to accommodate their loud and vigorous shouting. Starved for oxygen their muscles and tissues tighten. A typical physiological complaint of a blamer is chronic stiffness due to rapid and shallow breathing.

(Satir et al., 1991, p.42)

Being Super Reasonable
A super reasonable person discounts self and others and respects context only. They frequently know lots of data and function from a logic only perspective. Their inner monologue sounds like-

 "Everything is just a matter of logic, emotions are a waste of time." "I must be more intelligent and show how intelligent I am." 

In the super reasonable stance “we stand stiffly erect and immobile, with both arms at our sides or folded symmetrically in front of us…our faces appear expressionless. When people speak to us, we pontificate at length, seemingly wise and stately.” (Satir et at, 1991 p.45) Physiologically this stance restricts the glandular secretions. “Breast milk, semen, sweat, tears, and mucus are not created freely when we are super-reasonable….The juices are drying out.”

(Satir et al., 1991, p.47)

Being Irrelevant
A person that is irrelevant discounts self, others and context. An irrelevant person is often seen as amusing or a clown. They can distract attention away from any stressful situation. Their internal monologue will be about anything other what is happening before them. They are physically active and inattentive by whistling, singing, blinking or fidgeting. The irrelevant stance will hold their bodies askew, in “a hunched yet standing posture, both her knees are facing in and both arms and hands are facing up and out. Her head is cocked severely to one side, both eyes bulging. Her mouth is gaping and twisted and many parts of her face are twitching.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.51) A person with an irrelevant stance moves inappropriately, in a hyperactive way and their movements are usually purposeless. The physiology of this stance usually affects the central nervous system. A person in a chronic stance of irrelevance can have a distinct feeling of imbalance that includes dizziness and in severe cases includes psychosis and hebephrenia.

(Satir et al., 1991, p.50)

A person’s stance of choice is formed in childhood based on what we learn or are taught, mostly non-verbally from people’s double-level communication, about what family rules are in operation. For any of the stances to work the other people in the relationship must be functioning from one of the other four stances. Should one of the people function from a congruent stance then the other four stances loose their strength and change must occur.

Congruent
The ultimate goal of the Satir growth model is congruence. Satir held that high self-worth and congruence are the main “indicators of more fully functioning human beings.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.65) The congruent person holds equal balance in the circle of self, others, and context. “When we decide to respond congruently, it is not because we want to win, to control another person or a situation, to defend ourselves, or to ignore other people. Choosing congruence means choosing to be ourselves, to relate and contact others, and to connect with people directly.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.66) “Congruent communication has no contradictions between its layers. Senders do not consciously or unconsciously expect the receiver to make inferences about what they did not say, or to perceive contradictions between verbal and non-verbal messages. Congruent communicators share their thoughts and emotions about themselves without projecting them onto others and thus avoid manipulation.” (http://web18.epnet.com 03/07/04) Satir believed that there were three levels to congruence. The level of feelings, the self, and the life force or spiritual make up the three levels of congruence.

A person is not locked into one stance. They will have a more prominent stance under stress or in dealing with specific relationships. All of these stances contain positive aspects, as well as the more negative traits as listed previously, that provide resources from which to grow. Placators are kind and caring people, blamers can be assertive, super-reasonables can be intelligent, and irrelevant people can be creative and flexible. As change and growth occurs another coping method could be activated although “we are confined to some form of placating, blaming, being super-reasonable, or being irrelevant unless we learn how to be congruent.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.53) As children we learn to function in one of these stances primarily in order to be part of a balance in the family. With the best of intentions parents do the best they can, based on what they learned from their family of origin. Many of these learnings are based on generations of miscommunication. This is where Virginia Satir developed and used a three generational family map with which to explore issues, relationships and re-occurring themes in families. This was not designed to accuse or blame but rather to view situations from an empathetic point of view to understand previous situations that influence our situation today.

“Family sculpture was one of Virginia’s well-known ways of transforming words into action. It helped her depict the family’s system of interaction so that family members could see themselves more clearly. She would position family members in a still tableau or sculpture that displayed their typical ways of interacting- their supporting, clinging, blaming, placating, including, excluding, their distance and closeness, power and contact relationships, etc.” (Andreas, 1991, p.15) These dramatizations provided family members an opportunity to gain insights into their repetitive patterns with each other and through skillful interaction with the therapist/guide they learned to communicate more congruently with each other.

In family therapy, these sculptures use the actual members of the family although she found that these same techniques work when working with an individual. With an individual, others are asked to play the roles of the family members. Previous work would have been done with the individual’s, the Star’s, generational family map to familiarize the therapist/guide with “family rules of parents and grandparents, family patterns (e.g. occupations, illnesses, coping stances…) family values and beliefs…family myths and secrets, family themes.” (Satir et al. 1991, p.372) Along with the family map, the Star is also asked to make a chart of their wheel of influence. With their own name in the middle, the Star then surrounds their name with circles representing other people that played a significant role in their development. The wheel of influence is also used as a resource in the family sculpts.

Another resource used by Satir was the personal iceberg metaphor. In Satir’s iceberg model a person’s behavior is the tip of the iceberg and at the water line is the person’s coping stance. She maintains that becoming familiar with one’s under the waterline, bulk of the iceberg is the path to becoming congruent. She described three levels of congruence. The first level under the waterline to become aware of and familiar with is one’s feelings, expectations, perceptions and yearnings. The second level is awareness, acceptance and experience, the knowledge of self-wholeness. The third level is of spirituality and universality. Since Satir’s death, Dr. Banmen, who studied under Satir, has further delineated the iceberg model.

His view of The Personal Iceberg Metaphor of the Satir Model is as follows:
Many of the feelings, perceptions, and assumptions that we hold are formed originally from our family rules. These rules come from being taught directly or formed through assumptions and interpretations of interactions both verbal and non-verbal. “Satir emphasizes that the rules are an essential controlling force in the family…. Messages that parents convey to the child are often based on their own self-worth and in this way the interactive and reactive establish themselves for the next generation.” (http://web8.epnet.com 03/08/04)

When members of the same family express and examine what they each as individuals hold as family rules, there can often be great variations on what each of them knows to be true. Family rules are intended to provide guidance, set limits and to socialize. But family rules also serve to keep “the closed family system operating. A closed system, according to Satir, is characterized by members who:

 - Are guarded with each other 
- Are hostile 
- Feel powerless and controlled and are passive 
- Are inflexible in their views and behaviors 
- Wear a façade of indifference toward each other

Symptoms appear when the family’s rules squeeze a member’s self-worth to such a point that his or her survival is in question.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.112) It becomes easy then “to mix up our personality with our rules for how to live… Once we cut off our feelings or say only certain feelings are okay, we rechannel our energy away from our own experiences of the world, suppress or fight our feelings, and follow our rules as best we can.

In this case, the energy gets rechanneled into physical, psychological, or social difficulties.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.303) Family rules often include rules about feelings, which feelings are all right to express and which feelings should never be discussed. Rules about not asking for what you want. From these rules and a host of others, people grow up believing that they cannot say what they feel only what they think that they are supposed to feel, that they cannot ask for what they want but they must ask for what they think is expected of them to ask for.

As adults many of us function within our original family rules even if they no longer fit our needs or situation. When these family rules become barriers in our lives or the lives of our family members it is time to examine and transform these rules into guidelines. Satir believed that it was important not to throw out the rule because most likely it had been based on some original wisdom, rather to move the rule from “compulsion to choices.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.307)

Satir would then lead her client through three stages of transformation. Changing the shoulds to cans, the nevers to sometimes, and the third step is to expand the “I can” into three possibilities of what the person can do. “When inhuman rules can be changed into human ones, the family and the individual can operate within the Five Freedoms.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.307) Satir saw the five freedoms as a person’s rights and responsibilities.

The Five Freedoms 
The freedom to see and hear what is here instead of what should be, was, or will be. 
The freedom to say what one feels and thinks, instead of what one should. 
The freedom to feel what one feels, instead of what one ought. 
The freedom to ask for what one wants, instead of always waiting for permission. 
The freedom to take risks in one's own behalf, instead of choosing to be only "secure" and not
 rocking the boat. (Satir, V. 1976)

Virginia Satir believed change was possible. Her focus was on connecting her client or the family she was working with, at the level of yearnings, expectations, perceptions, and feelings. Working from this level would result in a sharing, acceptance, and respect as a matter of individual choice. Through the processes described previously, the client or family would learn the steps to becoming more congruent with each other. This work would provide an internal shift for the individual or family members that would fundamentally affect each person’s self-worth. Change then would be an internal shift that would bring about an external change. “To transform the survival stances into congruent communication, or to effect any other change, we need to examine the concepts of discovery, awareness, understanding, and new applications.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.86)

Satir delineated six stages in the process of change. The first is the client’s status quo or existing state. For an individual or a family system this is the place of familiar patterns of expectations and reactions. Dysfunctionally balanced individuals or family systems will continue to cope by placating, blaming, being super-reasonable, or being irrelevant until something drastic happens. The second stage is the introduction of a foreign element; the something drastic that signals the need for change is recognized. When an individual or family system is faced with something drastic they seek help. The incident and the therapist they seek, both become the foreign element. This is the stage where expectations, barriers to change, and coping stances are examined using the processes described previously. Resistance can be very strong at this stage. Reframing resistance, looking at the positive resources that an individual’s coping stance has provided, leads to a place of acceptance and dignity. With dignity in tact, a place to feel secure enough to move into the next stage of change is provided. The third stage is chaos where the client begins to move from their status quo into a state of disequilibrium. “Chaos means the system is now operating in ways we cannot predict. For many members, not being able to foretell their family’s expectations and reactions means they have lost their security and stability. They are in limbo, sometimes paralyzed by their fear of destruction. They may also feel a sense of loss or impending loss and consequently panic.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.108) Satir’s recognition and use of this stage of chaos is considered one of her major contributions. “Satir discovered that without this stage of chaos, no profound transformation of old, familiar survival copings could occur. Attaining positive, healthier, and more functional possibilities requires moving through a period of chaos.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.114) The fourth is the integration of the new learnings and where a new state of being begins to evolve. In this stage old survival patterns dissipate as new more congruent perceptions and possibilities develop. This is where the individual or family system takes “charge of what we once did on automatic pilot, bringing our control back into consciousness, and becoming more responsible for our internal process of Self.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.114) The fifth stage is practice, where the new learnings are practiced and the new state of being is strengthened. At this stage Satir encouraged clients “to use amulets, affirmations, meditations, and anchoring exercises to reduce the lure of past patterns” (Satir et al., 1991, p.115) so that their new more congruent state becomes automatic. A new status quo then becomes the sixth stage and represents a more functional state of being. This new status quo is a place of new self-images, hopes, dreams, and well-being. “Our challenge now is to develop human beings with values: moral, ethical, and humanistic. For me, this means learning how to be congruent, and that leads to becoming more fully human. When we achieve that, we will be able to enjoy this most wonderful planet and the life that inhabits it. – Virginia Satir” (www.sbbbks.com/satir-life.htm 14/07/04)

“Satir highly recommends that all therapists using her model have their own family reconstruction experience. This reduces the personal blindspots and defenses of a therapist while dealing with struggles of the family members” or individuals. (http://web8.epnet.com 03/08/04) She maintained that it was important for therapists to have done his or her own personal work to avoid having the client’s issues become enmeshed with the therapist’s issues. Satir held that therapists must be a model for congruency with his/her clients and only through having done his or her own personal work could this congruency be achieved. To keep growing and learning was the way for therapists to stay energized and to avoid “burn-out.” “I have learned that when I am fully present with the patient or family, I can move therapeutically with much greater ease. I can simultaneously reach the depths to which I need to go, and at the same time honor the fragility, the power and the sacredness of life in the other. When I am in touch with myself, my feelings, my thoughts, with what I see and hear, I am growing toward becoming a more integrated self. I am more congruent, I am more “whole,” and I am able to make greater contact with the other person.” (Baldwin and Satir, 1987, p.23) Contact is a means of dealing honestly, sharing your human issues and concerns, maintaining integrity and nurturing your growing self-worth. “The more full and complete the contact that we make with ourselves and each other, the more possible it is to feel loved and valued, to be healthy and to learn how to be more effective in solving our problems.” (Satir, 1976) The rest of this paper will document an individual’s transformational change and personal growth through involvement in the Satir Systemic Brief Therapy over the course of a six-month period.

CHAPTER III:
METHODOLOGY
IntroductionThe purpose of this study was to document the transformational change and personal growth of the author through involvement in the Satir Systemic Brief Therapy training. I attended ten, one-day Satir workshops over a seven-month period. Phenomenology explores lived experience and was chosen as the most appropriate method for this personal study. Chapter III will provide a brief description of phenomenology and the particular procedures chosen to track and acknowledge the transformational changes and personal growth that occurred over the course of the involvement with Satir training. Personal beliefs, previous knowledge and limitations of the study will be discussed.Phenomenology As A Methodology “To deny the truth of our own experience in the scientific study of ourselves is not only unsatisfactory, it is to render the scientific study of ourselves without a subject matter….Experience and self-understanding are like two legs without which we cannot walk.”-Francisco Varela (http://www.findarticles.com 29/12/04)

“As formulated by Husserl (the founder of phenomenology)…phenomenology is the study of the structures of consciousness.” (http://www.mala.bc.ca 15/01/05) Phenomenology is the examining of the lived experience. In the case of this study it was used to examine the lived experience of the author in her learning of and applying the models used in Satir Systemic Brief Therapy training. Husserl advocated “bracketing (i.e. setting aside preconceived notions) enables one to objectively describe the phenomena under study.” (http://www.findarticles.com 29/12/04) Martin Heidegger, a follower of Husserl, “believed that as human beings, our meanings are co-developed through the experience of being born human, our collective life experiences, our background, and the world in which we live….He did not believe it was possible to bracket our assumptions of the world, but rather that through authentic reflection, we might become aware of many of our assumptions.” (http:www.findarticles.com 29/12/04) In Max Van Manen’s book, Researching Lived Experience, he warns that all accounts of the lived-experience are already transformations of those experiences (p.54), but that “the ‘data’ of human science research are human experiences.” (p.63) Phenomenological methods of research include interviews, observations, recollections, diaries, journals, logs and letters.

Research Methods In order to understand the personal transformational phenomena being studied I will try to capture an internal snapshot of self prior to Satir training. I will use previous diary/journal notations and reflections on self as well as use Satir’s iceberg model to formulate a picture of where I am starting in this process. I will process myself through Satir’s iceberg model periodically throughout the seven-month period as a record of process. I can draw from a written collection of comments/reflections made by people that are close to me about how they see me. This collection is from previous to, during and following the Satir training. Following each of the workshop weekends, I will keep a personal reflective journal on my learning’s and working within my triad on the particular lessons presented. At the end of my Satir training, I will examine this collection to see if any themes of transformation emerge.

The main goal, as I see it, in Satir training is growing towards being a congruent person. “Congruence is based on an awareness of what is going on within: our thoughts, feelings, body messages, and the meanings we ascribe to our experiences. We learned to be incongruent to survive; to learn congruence requires reevaluating and hearing ourselves anew, being able to gauge our self-worth at any moment, and moving from the submissive/dominant model to Satir’s growth model.” (Satir et al., 1991, p.76) The difficulty with this study is the ability to be “congruent” and objective when viewing oneself introspectively. As the viewer observing any phenomena must always consider their own belief systems and underlying preconceived notions, the limitations of this study encompass my ability to be congruent and observant of my own internal shifts as well as my own personal beliefs.

I will attempt to bracket or set aside my understandings and beliefs prior to my involvement in Satir Systemic Brief Therapy training. My personal biases, beliefs, and experiences that bracket who I am are as follows. I grew up in a white, middle-class family in the 1950’s and 60’s. My early adult life was in the typical experimental culture of the early 1970’s. I am a woman, daughter, sister, ex-wife, wife/partner, friend, mother, student and teacher. I believe I have chosen to surround myself with people and experiences in my life that have caused me to question my inner workings, reflect and grow personally. I believe that connection and relationship is of primary importance. I believe I am willing to look critically at the multi-layers of my multi-dimensional being. I believe this study to be a step in the continuum of my personal growth.

Summary The purpose of this study is to document the transformational change and personal growth of the author through involvement in the Satir Systemic Brief Therapy training. The phenomenological approach was chosen as the most appropriate approach to investigate the inner world and personal transformations. Through study of the lived experience of Satir training, the author hopes to bring new insights and hidden processes to an external awareness. Chapter four will describe the author’s process through the structures of the Satir Model (ie. iceberg, family maps and communication model) and highlight any themes that emerge.

References

Books:

Andreas, S. (1991). Virginia Satir The Patterns of Her Magic. Moab, Utah: Real People Press.

Baldwin, M. and Satir, V. (1987) The Use of Self in Therapy. New York: The Haworth Press.

Banmen, J., Gerber, J., Gomori, M., and Satir, V. (1991) The Satir Model. Palo Alto, California.

Lum, Wendy. The Lived Experience of the Personal Iceberg metaphor of Therapists in Satir Systemic Brief Therapy Training. UBC MA April 2000

Rogers, Carl. (1977) Carl Rogers on Personal Power Inner Strength and its Revolutionary Impact. New York: Delacorte Press.

Satir, Virginia. (1972) Peoplemaking. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behavior Books.

Satir, Virginia. (1976) Making Contact. Berkeley, California: Celestial Arts.

Satir, Virginia. (1983) Conjoint Family Therapy. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behavior Books.

Satir, Virginia. (1988) The New Peoplemaking. Mountain View, California: Science and Behavior Books.

Van Manen, Max. (1990) Researching Lived Experience Human Science for an Action pedagogy. London, Ontario: The Althouse Press.

Webpages:

Social Work A Work of Heart.
http://wwwgeocities.com/socialworkontheweb/satir.html

Virginia Satir Biography.
http://www.avanta.net/BIOGRAPHY/bio-family.html

Virginia Satir.
http://www.plebius.org/encyclopedia.php?term+Virginia+Satir

Virginia Satir: Her Life and Circle of Influence.
http://www.sbbks.com/satir-life.html

Banmen, J. Virginia Satir’s Family Therapy Model.
http://web8.epnet.com

Banmen, J. Changing Unmet Expectations in Therapy. http://www.satirpacific.org

Byrne, Michelle M. Understanding life experiences through a phenomenological approach to research.
http://www.findarticles.com 29/12/04

Cardwell, Maude. The Seth Material Blueprint for the New Age.
http.//www.worldlightcenter.com

11/05/02 Cheung, M. Social Construction Theory and The Satir Model: Toward a Synthesis.
http://content.epnet.com

Horn, Jim.Qualitative research literature: a bibliographic essay- Qualitative Research.
http://www.findarticles.com

Moore, M. and Kramer, D. Satir For Beginners: Incongruent Communication Patters in Romantic Fiction.
http://web18.epnet.com Phenomenology. http://www.mala.bc.ca

The Satir Change Model

by Steven M. Smith

Improvement is always possible. This conviction is the heart of the transformation system developed by family therapist Virginia Satir. Her system helps people improve their lives by transforming the way they see and express themselves.

An element of the Satir System is a five-stage change model (see Figure 1) that describes the effects each stage has on feelings, thinking, performance, and physiology. Using the principles embodied in this model, you can improve how you process change and how you help others process change.

Firgure 1. The impact on group performance of a well assimilated change during the five stages of the Satir Change Model.

Stage 1: Late Status Quo

The group is at a familiar place. The performance pattern is consistent. Stable relationships give members a sense of belonging and identity. Members know what to expect, how to react, and how to behave.

Implicit and explicit rules underlie behavior. Members attach survival value to the rules, even if they are harmful. For instance, the chief of an engineering group has an explicit rule — all projects must be completed on schedule. When the flu halts the work of several engineers, the chief requires the group to compensate by working ten hours a day, seven days a week. After experiencing too many crises at both work and home, the engineers begin to bicker and the project falls apart.

For this group, the chief’s explicit rule about deadlines is their Late Status Quo. They don’t necessarily enjoy the amount of work they had to do, but they know and understand what is expected of them. The team feels the pressure from the chief’s rule about deadlines and compensates accordingly. The pressure works for small problems. With a major problem, like the flu, the group cannot cope with the chief’s expectations and a pattern of dysfunctional behavior starts.

Poor communication is a symptom of a dysfunctional group. Members use blaming, placating, and other incongruent communication styles to cope with feelings like anger and guilt. Stress may lead to physical symptoms such as headaches and gastrointestinal pain that create an unexplainable increase in absenteeism.

Caught in a web of dysfunctional concepts, the members whose opinions count the most are unaware of the imbalance between the group and its environment. New information and concepts from outside the group can open members up to the possibility of improvement.

Stage 2: Resistance

The group confronts a foreign element that requires a response. Often imported by a small minority seeking change, this element brings the members whose opinions count the most face to face with a crucial issue.

A foreign element threatens the stability of familiar power structures. Most members resist by denying its validity, avoiding the issue, or blaming someone for causing the problem. These blocking tactics are accompanied by unconscious physical responses, such as shallow breathing and closed posture.

Resistance clogs awareness and conceals the desires highlighted by the foreign element. For example, a powerful minority within the marketing department of a tool manufacturer engages a consultant to do a market survey. She finds a disturbing trend: A growing number of clients believe that a competitor is producing superior quality products at a lower price. Middle and upper management vehemently deny the findings and dispute the validity of the survey methods. But after a series of frank discussions with key clients, upper management accepts the findings. They develop a vision for propelling the company into a position as the industry leader in product quality and support.

Members in this stage need help opening up, becoming aware, and overcoming the reaction to deny, avoid or blame.

Stage 3: Chaos

The group enters the unknown. Relationships shatter: Old expectations may no longer be valid; old reactions may cease to be effective; and old behaviors may not be possible.

The loss of belonging and identity triggers anxiousness and vulnerability. On occasion, these feelings may set off nervous disorders such as shaking, dizziness, tics, and rashes. Members may behave uncharacteristically as they revert to childhood survival rules. For instance, a manufacturing company cancels the development of a major new product, reduces the number of employees, and reorganizes. Many of the surviving employees lose their ability to concentrate for much of the day. Desperately seeking new relationships that offer hope, the employees search for different jobs. Both manufacturing yield and product quality takes a nosedive.

Managers of groups experiencing chaos should plan for group performance to plummet during this stage. Until the members accept the foreign element, members form only halfhearted relationships with each other. Chaos is the period of erratic performance that mirrors the search for a beneficial relationship to the foreign element.

All members in this stage need help focusing on their feelings, acknowledging their fear, and using their support systems. Management needs special help avoiding any attempt to short circuit this stage with magical solutions. The chaos stage is vital to the transformation process.

Stage 4: Integration

The members discover a transforming idea that shows how the foreign element can benefit them. The group becomes excited. New relationships emerge that offer the opportunity for identity and belonging. With practice, performance improves rapidly.

For instance, an experienced accounting group must convert to a new computer system. The group resists the new system fearing it will turn them into novices. But the members eventually discover that skill with this widely used system increases their value in the marketplace. Believing that the change may lead to salary increases or better jobs, the members begin a vigorous conversion to the new system.

Awareness of new possibilities enables authorship of new rules that build functional reactions, expectations, and behaviors. Members may feel euphoric and invincible, as the transforming idea may be so powerful that it becomes a panacea.

Members in this stage need more support than might be first thought. They can become frustrated when things fail to work perfectly the first time. Although members feel good, they are also afraid that any transformation might mysteriously evaporate disconnecting them from their new relationships and plunging them back into chaos. The members need reassurance and help finding new methods for coping with difficulties.

Stage 5: New Status Quo

If the change is well conceived and assimilated, the group and its environment are in better accord and performance stabilizes at a higher level than in the Late Status Quo.

A healthy group is calm and alert. Members are centered with more erect posture and deeper breathing. They feel free to observe and communicate what is really happening. A sense of accomplishment and possibility permeates the atmosphere.

In this stage, the members continue to need to feel safe so they can practice. Everyone, manager and members, needs to encourage each other to continue exploring the imbalances between the group and its environment so that there is less resistance to change.

I’ve observed groups, after many change cycles, become learning organizations?they learn how to cope with change. The members of these organizations are not threatened or anxious about the types of situations that they used to experience as foreign element. Instead, these situations excite and motivate them.

For example, the customer services group of a computer manufacturer learns to adapt their repair policies and techniques to any new product. Supporting a new computer system used to scare the group but not anymore. Management communicates and reinforces the vision of seamless new product support. Some members influence the design of support features for the new products. Other members plan and teach training courses. All members provide feedback to improve the process.

Postscript: Coping With Change

Virginia Satir’s Change Model describes the change patterns she saw during therapy with families. In my experience, the patterns she describes occur with any group of people when confronted by change.

I use this model to select how to help a group make a successful transformation from an Old Status Quo to a New Status Quo. Table 1 summarizes my suggestions on how to help during each stage of the change model:

Stage	Description	How to Help
1	Late Status Quo	Encourage people to seek improvement information and concepts from outside the group.
2	Resistance	Help people to open up, become aware, and overcome the reaction to deny, avoid or blame.
3	Chaos	Help build a safe environment that enables people to focus on their feelings, acknowledge their fear, and use their support systems. Help management avoid any attempt to short circuit this stage with magical solutions.
4	Integration	Offer reassurance and help finding new methods for coping with difficulties.
5	New Status Quo	Help people feel safe so they can practice.

Table 1. Actions for each stage that will help a group change more quickly and effectively.

The actions in Table 1 will help people cope. Actions that inhibit coping retards an organization’s ability to make core changes. These organization are resisting the fundamental foreign element of change. But organizations that create a safe environment where people are encouraged to cope increase their capacity for change and are much more able to respond effectively to whatever challenges are thrown their way.

References

Satir, Virginia, et. al., The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond, ISBN 0831400781, Science and Behavior Books, 1991.

Weinberg, Gerald M., Quality Software Management: Anticipating Change (Volume 4), ISBN 0932633323, Dorset House, 1997.

A Portrait of Virginia Satir

Virginia Satir was one of the most imaginative and creative teachers and therapists that I have ever met. Learning from her was truly an experience of living life fully. You never knew what was going to happen next once Virginia started working with someone but you could always be certain that you would learn a lot about yourself, people in general and how Virginia worked.  It was very exciting to learn from her and to be a part of the development and unfolding of her work.

Virginia Satir was my teacher, mentor, colleague and friend.   Our association continued for 15 years until her death. She was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

Virginia made doing complex and profound things seem easy and simple with her exqusite skills,  positive, ‘can do’ attitude and her willingness to go to new places with people.

When Virginia began to work with someone, she would listen for a while, share with them what she was understanding about them and what they were interested in having happen; then she would say something like “Let’s start right here by doing this and then we’ll see what happens next. How would that be?”  The next thing you knew you were off on a learning adventure with Virginia as guide.

Whenever Virginia started working you either watched from your seat or were selected to take a more active part right there in the action with her.  She often orchestrated scenes of past, present or future interchanges and ideas that came alive as members of the audience were elected to represent and enact the key elements, dynamics or people involved.

This Satir theatre provided the star, Virginia’s term for client, because “we are all the stars of our own lives”, with a dynamic, externalized view of their internal pictures, models and experiences that could be looked at, commented on, explored and experimented with.  New perspectives, choices and decisions were always a result of this work.  The Parts Party, Family Reconstruction, Couple and Family Sculpting a few of The Satir Model’s vehicles that utilize this process as do the Communication Stances Virginia is most widely known for.

As Virginia guided the star through the experience of watching the sculpture or enactment as it unfolded under her expert direction, she would periodically stop the action and have the star, or the people role playing, comment on their experience, thoughts or feelings through her expert facilitation.

It was through these seemingly casual and random interchanges that profound realizations, information and awareness would surface which Virginia would then expertly weave back into the work. Doing this allowed the experience and information to become integrated into the star’s conscious awareness.

It was by using this type of relating and processing that Virginia was able to create the conditions for a transformation to take place—a change that would have lasting effects on the star, the people role playing, the audience and, ultimately Virginia herself. In the Satir Model, the guide benefits, learns and grows right along with the star.

The art of The Satir Model, which began first with Virginia facilitating these interactions and exchanges, is in how the Satir guide uses his or her self in relation to the star, the role players and the audience and manifests these interchanges, surfacing the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, expectations, and yearnings during this orchestrated learning experience.

How the Satir guide harvests the learnings during and after the enactment or sculpture further brings into awareness what has transpired as well as information and new discoveries that can be utilized again by the star to make fitting choices in the future.

Virginia Satir was a genius. Her ways of working with and understanding people are some of the best in the world. The Satir Model is easily taught, learned, understood and used by clients, professionals, the business community and the general public throughout the world.  Her customizable universal formulas and practical, down to earth tools and methods are effective with a wide range of people and cultures and provide immediate and lasting results that can be replicated.

The Satir Model is one of the most comprehensive, multi-dimensional, practical and effective therapy and change approaches around.  It helps people understand themselves and each other, heal their wounds and transform their lives.

The Satir Model produces rapid results and encourages a proactive approach to life.  It also provides human systems with a guide to what is needed to support healthy human relationships, navigate change and create systems of interaction and community that support the growth and development of the person as well as the business or organization.

The transformational processes of The Satir Model are easily explainable, understandable, learnable and transferable.  Virginia’s approach works equally well with therapy, business, education, creative pursuits and many other areas of human systems interaction.

The tools, teachings, principles and practices that Satir developed are timeless and are perhaps an even better fit today than when she when she first began teaching and using them. 

The Positive Psychology Movement and the Interpersonal Neurobiology approach are currently using science and research to illustrate and support core teachings and practices that are quite similar to those that Virginia developed, used and taught more than two decades ago.

It should be noted that while I learned at the feet of Virginia Satir, I also have had a great deal of training and exposure to other great teachers in the field of family therapy and psychology.  My professional training and education has included mastery of multiple approaches to working with individuals, couples, families, groups and organizations.

As a therapist, graduate professor and supervisor of therapists, I’ve learned, practiced and become proficient at teaching, training, supervising and doing therapy with the major and minor therapeutic theories and approaches.  My esteem for The Satir Model is a result of my lifelong study of the best human and organizational growth, change and transformation systems.

Virginia Satir succeeded greatly with the body of knowledge she pioneered while she was with us.  The legacy that she left us, her tools, teachings and practices that are the Satir Model, are as reliable as having Virginia herself present.  Experience this for yourself.

By Lynne Azpeitia, M.A., Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist, AAMFT Approved Supervisor

http://www.gifted-adults.com/content/view/91/123/

Virginia Satir

Virginia Satir is one of the key figures in the development of family therapy. She believed that a healthy family life involved an open and reciprocal sharing of affection, feelings, and love. Satir made enormous contributions to family therapy in her clinical practice and training. She began treating families in 1951 and established a training program for psychiatric residents at the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute in 1955. Satir served as the director of training at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto from 1959-66 and at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur beginning in 1966.

In addition, Satir gave lectures and led workshops in experiential family therapy across the country. She was well-known for describing family roles, such as “the rescuer” or “the placator,” that function to constrain relationships and interactions in families (Nichols & Schwartz, 1998. Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods. 4th ed. Allyn & Bacon).

Satir’s genuine warmth and caring was evident in her natural inclination to incorporate feelings and compassion in the therapeutic relationship. She believed that caring and acceptance were key elements in helping people face their fears and open up their hearts to others (Nichols & Schwartz, 1998. Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods. 4th ed. Allyn & Bacon).

Above all other therapists, Satir’s was the most powerful voice to wholeheartedly support the importance of love and nurturance as being the most important healing aspects of therapy.

Unfortunately, Satir’s beliefs went against the more scientific approach to family therapy accepted at that time, and she shifted her efforts away from the field to travel and lecture. Satir died in 1988 after suffering from pancreatic cancer.

http://www.abacon.com/famtherapy/history.html

The Satir Model of Brief Therapy

Virginia Satir believes in empowering clients to take care of their own problems.  One of her major therapeutic beliefs is that the problem is not the problem, coping is.  She believes that when clients seek help with their problems it is really their inability to cope with their problems that requires help and not so much the problem itself.  She believes that all clients have inner strengths and resources that the therapist can surface and help their clients tap into, to empower them to cope better.  Hence the focus of therapy is not on the problem but on the person of the client.  She also believes that coping is a manifestation of the level of self-worth. The higher one’s self-worth, the more effective and wholesome the coping.

As coping is largely an internal process, Satir believes that clients can be in charge of and be responsible for their own internal processes rather than trying to control the outside world of people and events which he or she has little control of.  Since clients can be fully in charge of their inner processes or in other words themselves, Satir believes that change is possible, even if external change is limited, internal change is possible.  Rather than being problem-focused or focused on pathology, the Satir Model is therefore always moving clients towards positively directional goals.

Satir further believes that we have choices, especially in terms of responding to stress instead of reacting to situations.  A major goal of the Satir Model in therapy is therefore to help client to be more responsible and to be better choice makers.  While most counselling and therapy models attempts to help clients find solutions to their problems or focused on changing undesirable behaviours, the Satir Model attempts to make transformational change.  It seeks to change the person by dealing with his feelings, perceptions, expectations and yearnings as well as his behaviour  which is only one of the components of the person’s ‘internal world’.

An important assessment and intervention tool in the Satir Model is the Iceberg Metaphor  which illustrates the various components of the individual’s ‘internal world’.  One important components of the Iceberg which we often encounter when our clients are unhappy is that of unmet expectations.  There are three kinds of expectations that we know of.  They are our expectations we have of ourselves, the expectations we have of others and the expectations they have of us.  Very often we find that many clients come to see us due to an unmet expectation.  Anger, hurt, sadness and disappointments very often are feelings associated with unmet expectations.  Knowing how to help our clients learn how to deal with their unmet expectations would help them then deal with their reactive feelings such as anger, fear and hurt.  Learning to help clients deal with unmet expectations therefore go a long way at not only helping them deal with their reactive feelings, but would also help them change their behaviour which is an outcome of these reactive feelings.

Another way of emphasising that the Satir Model does not focus on the problem but on the coping is to emphasise that the Satir Model focuses on the impact an event (often in the form of a story or incident or behaviour our clients tell us as their presenting problem) rather than the event itself.  To find out how an event has affected or impacted the person and how he or she is coping, the therapist would explore his ‘iceberg’ to find out how it has affected his/her  behaviour, feelings, perceptions, expectations, yearnings and his/her/ self.  The client would then be helped to change what is necessary at any of these levels of coping in his ‘iceberg’ so that he/she can be more wholesome, more responsible for himself or herself, more congruent and become better choice makers in life.