HDFS 135 1st Edition Lecture 15History of Systems TheoryWorld War II- use of airplanes; needed to improve anti-aircraft gunnery to improve accuracy of aiming at moving targets. Ludwig Von Bertanlanffy- Austrian biologist believed could explain all types of universal principles to groupings he called systems.Family Systems TheoryFamily is a system composed of individual family membersCannot understand the individual family member without looking at the family.Systems“a bounded set of interrelated elements (people) exhibiting coherent behavior as a unit”HierarchyThe arrangement of the systems that exist within the systemsSubsystems:A relationship among members of the system; marital, parent-child, sibling.SuprasystemExamples; community, schools, nation, environmentBoundaryIs who is included in the familyNot always visible, but feel real to family membersBoundaries can be:These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.1. External: Separate who is in the family from who is not in it. Separates the family from its environment. 2. Internal: internal boundaries are found within the family. Separate the subsystems that make it up.Open vs. Closed:Quality of boundaries; not absolute, but on a continuumClosed boundaries: rigid; less open to change. Don’t interact a lot with others/ aren’t open to information and feedback from outside.Internal boundaries can also be closed: families that are too closed we refer to as disengaged. Not a lot of interaction; people just go their own way.Open boundaries: more open to change; able to take in information from outside the family because families need at least some interaction with the environment they are considered an open system. Enmeshed families: an extreme on the continuum. Everyone is always in everyone’s business, there is little that is private.Patterns:Families have repeated patterns that regulate members’ behaviors. By knowing the patterns it can help us predict what might happen in the future.Families have a homeostatic tendency:They want to maintain their behavior with certain limits; They don’t want wild fluctuationsFeedbackFamilies use feedback information to maintain patterns. Much like a thermostat; the family looks at its behavior, evaluates it against the desired behavior, then changes it until it meets the desired pattern.Circularity:There are no simple cause and effect relationships within families. Results in less blaming because our behavior is caused as much by our own responses as by the other person’s behavior.Rules: Can be attitudes, behaviors, communicational patterns, “shoulds”, relationship agreements. They are always there, and they help families work. Great variability due to background, social status, ethnicity, values, etc. Explicit Rules: Spoken or known. Curfew, no sex before marriage. Implicit rules: Unspoken—often we don’t know about these until we break them. Don’t say anything if you’re angry; don’t fight; don’t mention dad’s drinking problem; don’t mention Uncle’s affair.Structure:Structure refers to the rule-governed patterns of interaction that are found in the system. The structure tells how family members relate to one another, when they relate, and with whom.Morphostasis:Maintaining the existing systemic structure.Morphogenesis;Changing the systemic structure. Family creates a new way of operating. Virginia Satir uses the metaphor of a mobile to describe this process.Roles:The behaviors and expectation associated with our place in the family, our place in the structureand our place in the process. The definition of most family roles depends upon the existence of another. Families have emotional roles as well.General Points:Systems theory generally point to the role of the family in problem behavior of individual family members. The major characteristic of a healthy family functioning is the family’s ability to change. A system does like to maintain Morphostasis but it is the family’s ability to adapt and change which enables it to function. Systems must be understood as a whole; “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”: The family is a system that is composed of the individual members but at the same time is more than just the individual family members. Systems are self- reflexive, and self-monitoring. The ability to make themselves & their behavior the object of examination and the target of explanation.Criticisms of Family SystemsTo general & broad for research. Some argue it is more of a philosophical approach than theory. Equal weight put on every member of the family when dysfunction