PRATIQUES / IMPACT- AF - formation ASmaE / LINGAP

Sandrine Coutancier & Gwen Dorflinger
Reunion Pratiques / Impact Déc. 99
Les Amis de Soeur Emmanuelle

next note "The genogram"
back to the social-health index
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Voir aussi l'intervention de Cécile Bizouerne à l'atelier AF de décembre 2002
Voir aussi le compte-rendu rédigé par Anne Carpentier de l'intervention sur la Systémie et la thérapie Familiale par Processus Recherche, atelier AF 2005,
Voir aussi Biblio social et psychosocial

Beneficiairies : the social workers of LINGAP Foundation (Inter Aide's former partner on social programs in Manila)

Purposes : to provide the Social Workers some tools that can help them in their supervision of Field Workers
To understand the family system and help he identification and analysis of families problems

Schedule:
2 half-days of training from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM

1st part :
- Theoritical basics about the Systemic Approach
- Introduction to the genogram technique
- Illustration with a concrete case choosen by the social workers

2nd part:
- concrete application of the genogram technique
- drawing and analysis of the social workers's personal genogram
- drawing and analysis of problematic cases

Place: Lingap Foundation Office

Trainers : Sandrine Coutancier and Gwen Dorflinger

The family is a system of continuous human relationships that are interconnected all the time. When there is a change in one family member there is a change in all other family members. These interactions are expressed in words, by touch, looks, body posture and other verbal or non-verbal behaviors.

A person lives in different systems at the same time. These sytems influence one another.

What are the different dynamic components of the family system ?

1. Purpose or goal
Why does the family system exist?
The family is a place where the children can identify the difference between female and male and between themselves and the others. I am different from my mother...
This is also the place where they build their self-esteem, where they will learn how to be able to achieve their own wishes and become parents themselves later.

2. Alliance and coalitions:
An alliance is an agreement, often unspoken, between two or more family members, which is used to exercise power or control, to protect another family member or maintain the "status quo".
Who forms alliances over what issues ?
Under what circumstances does the alliance change ?

3. Space
What is the amount of space (both physical and emotional) between family members?
Who is close and who is distant?
Who is isolated / alone ?

4. Gravitational pulls
Who are these persons ?
To whom do person turn in the family for whole?
What characteristics do these persons have ?

5. Boundaries
Boundaries define limits of a family and its members. Each individual has his/her own boundary, helping him/her to achieve autonomy. (Boundaries between generations, around roles...)

6. Roles
A role is a position in a family within a series of reciprocal expectations
Who feeds?
Who nourishes?
Who puts limits ?
Who lets go ? who gives permission?
Who suffers pain?
Who is different from the others?
Who is the hero? the black sheep? the scapegoat ?

7. Places
Everybody needs to have a place recognized by the others in which he / she will be able to grow-up as a person.
the stucture and the place should be like this :

Those 2 systems compose the family.

1. If there is no borderline or frontier, the 2 systems are in danger because a child may have the parent's place and on the contrary, the parents may have the children's place.
Ex. a girl who takes the place of the mother and a boy who takes the place of his father.
2. If the borderline is closed, the only way of communication between the two systems is violence. It has to be penetrable.

8. The rules
Most of the time, ther are implicit rules within the family upon which all have agreed verbally or non verbally, and which govern the family'sactions and reactions.
For examples, rules such as how and when we should eat, sleep...
Communication norms such as what is allowed to express, emotion, pain, needs, anger, to talk about problems...

Very often, we have unspoken family rules. If a family member cannot express his feelings because it the family rule, he will express it by pain or by doing evil.

For example:
A child comes back from school with a nice drawing. He is happy and proud. He shows it to his mother. At this particular moment, he probably wants his mother to says something like "well, it is a nice drawing, you draw very well and I am proud of you". But the mother is in a hurry: she has to clean the house before her husband comes back. She is a bit anxious and does not even look at the drawing and says "I have no time for that, don't you see I am in a hurry, go away". The child feels sad but cannot express that.
The next day, the child comes back from school with his trousers torn. The mother looks at him and shouts at him "what have you done? You are a naughty boy..."
The child may feel angry and he tries to answer to his mother, but the the mother becomes more violent. So the child may understand that to get his mothers' attention, to be recognized by his mother he has to do bad things.

Another rule of communication:
When I express a feeling or give an order, it has to be in accordance with my expression. In other words, the message I am sending has to be the same as my behavior.
For example:
A child is transferred into an institution and his parents write letters to him saying "we love you, we miss you". When the parents visit the child, the child runs toward his mother but she moves back and starts speaking to the social workers about materialistic things. She does not look at her child.
In this example, there is no accordance between the mothers' letters and her behavior. It is a great damage for the child; he may feel guilty and think "what have I done wrong? My mother doesn't love me anymore". He is confused, and may lose confidence in his own feelings. "What I feel is wrong", so the child has a low self-esteem, cannot improve it and is too young to tell his parents that he does not understand.
We can find this pattern of communication in abusive family.

9. Values.
They are the mental and emotional sets, which help a person judge the importance of things, ideas and events. They are more action oriented than beliefs.
Values are often connected with the religious and culturel systems.
For example: what is good of bad ?
Do parents have a close relationship with the children or not, and how? If they have a close relationship, the child may be considered as an adult. If the do not have a close relationship, the child may feel alone.

10. Beliefs
Everybody sees reality with his own eyes.
Reality is not Truth. Reality depends on our beliefs.
Beliefs come from family, cultural, religious transmission.
For example, in some family, beliefs can be "all men are violent", or "all men are useless" or "I am not able to be a good mother".
We build our reality, our relationships upon those beliefs.

Conclusion

"The unit in human life with the most powerful dedication to growth is not the individual or the work group or the social group but the family"

ASMAE (Les amis de Soeur Emmanuelle) is a French NGO. It was I.A.'s partner in Manila (family development program and education program).

You can share your point of view, ideas and suggestions by e-mail or on the forum. Thank you !

Back to health & social index
next note (the genogram)
Voir aussi l'intervention de Cécile Bizouerne à l'atelier AF de décembre 2002

Voir aussi le compte-rendu rédigé par Anne Carpentier de l'intervention sur la Systémie et la thérapie Familiale par Processus Recherche, atelier AF 2005,
Voir aussi Biblio social et psychosocial

Voir aussi le compte-rendu rédigé par Anne Carpentier de l'intervention sur la Systémie et la thérapie Familiale par Processus Recherche, atelier AF 2005,
Voir aussi Biblio social et psychosocial