Enmeshment
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Enmeshment
Enmeshment is a concept in psychology and psychotherapy introduced by Salvador Minuchin (1921–2017) to describe families where personal boundaries are diffused, sub-systems undifferentiated, and over-concern for others leads to a loss of autonomous development. Enmeshed in parental needs, trapped in a discrepant role function, a child may lose their capacity for self-direction; their own distinctiveness, under the weight of "psychic incest"; and, if family pressures increase, may end up becoming the identified patient Identified patient (IP) is a clinical term often heard in family therapy discussion. It describes one family member in a dysfunctional family who expresses the family's authentic inner conflicts. Usually, the "designated patient" expresses their ... or family scapegoat. Enmeshment was also used by John Bradshaw to describe a state of cross-generational bonding within a family, whereby a child (normally of the opposite sex) becomes a surrogate spouse for thei ...
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Structural Family Therapy
Structural family therapy (SFT) is a method of psychotherapy developed by Salvador Minuchin which addresses problems in functioning within a family. Structural family therapists strive to enter, or "join", the family system in therapy in order to understand the invisible rules which govern its functioning, map the relationships between family members or between subsets of the family, and ultimately disrupt dysfunctional relationships within the family, causing it to stabilize into healthier patterns. Minuchin contends that pathology rests not in the individual, but within the family system. SFT utilizes, not only a special systems terminology, but also a means of depicting key family parameters diagrammatically. Its focus is on the structure of the family, including its various substructures. In this regard, Minuchin is a follower of systems and communication theory, since his structures are defined by transactions among interrelated systems within the family. He subscribe ...
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Stockholm Syndrome
Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors. It is supposed to result from a rather specific set of circumstances, namely the power imbalances contained in hostage-taking, kidnapping, and abusive relationships. Therefore, it is difficult to find a large number of people who experience Stockholm syndrome to conduct studies with any sort of power. This makes it hard to determine trends in the development and effects of the condition— and, in fact, it is a "contested illness" due to doubts about the legitimacy of the condition. Emotional bonds may be formed between captors and captives, during intimate time together, but these are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims. Stockholm syndrome has never been included in the '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' or DSM, the standard tool for diagnosis of psychiatric illnesses and disorders in the US, mainly du ...
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Psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psyc ...
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Cross-generational Sexual Relationships
Concepts of age disparity in sexual relationships, including what defines an age disparity, have developed over time and vary among societies. Differences in age preferences for mates can stem from partner availability, gender roles, and evolutionary mating strategies, and age preferences in sexual partners may vary cross-culturally. There are also social theories for age differences in relationships as well as suggested reasons for 'alternative' age-hypogamous relationships. Age-disparate relationships have been documented for most of recorded history and have been regarded with a wide range of attitudes dependent on sociocultural norms and legal systems. Statistics Data in Australia and the United Kingdom show an almost identical pattern. Relationships with age disparities have been observed with both men and women as the older or younger partner. In various cultures, older men and younger women often seek one another for sexual or marital relationships. Older women someti ...
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Psychological Concepts
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.Fernald LD (2008)''Psychology: Six perspectives'' (pp.12–15). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Hockenbury & Hockenbury. Psychology. Worth Publishers, 2010. Ψ (''psi''), the first letter of the Greek word ''psyche'' from which the term psychology is derived (see below), is commonly associated with the science. A professional practitioner or researcher involved in the discipline is called a psychologist. Some psychologists can also be classified as behavioral or cognitive scientists. Some psyc ...
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Parentification
Parentification or parent–child role reversal is the process of role reversal whereby a child or adolescent is obliged to act as parent to their own parent or sibling. Two distinct types of parentification have been identified technically: instrumental parentification and emotional parentification. Instrumental parentification involves the child completing physical tasks for the family, such as looking after a sick relative, paying bills, or providing assistance to younger siblings that would normally be provided by a parent. Emotional parentification occurs when a child or adolescent must take on the role of a confidante or mediator for (or between) parents or family members. Background Melitta Schmideberg noted in 1948 how emotional deprivation could lead parents to treat their children (unconsciously) as substitute parent figures. Minuchin et al. introduced the term ''parentification'' in 1967. Boszormenyi-Nagy et al. defined it in 1973 as "a parental figure's expectation t ...
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Harold Searles
Harold Frederic Searles (September 1, 1918 – November 18, 2015) was one of the pioneers of psychiatric medicine specializing in psychoanalytic treatments of schizophrenia. Searles had the reputation of being a therapeutic virtuoso with difficult and borderline patients; and of being, in the words of Horacio Etchegoyen, president of the IPA, "not only a great analyst but also a sagacious observer and a creative and careful theoretician". Life Searles was born in 1918 at Hancock, New York, a small village in the Catskill Mountains along the Delaware River, which was the subject of many of his reminiscences in his first book, ''The Nonhuman Environment''. He attended Cornell University and Harvard Medical School before joining the US armed services in World War II, where he served as a captain After the war he continued his psychiatric training at the Chestnut Lodge, a private sanitarium in Rockville, Maryland, from 1949 to 1951, then at the Veterans Administration Mental Hygiene C ...
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Folie à Deux
Folie à deux ('folly of two', or 'madness haredby two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a collection of rare psychiatric syndromes in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, are transmitted from one individual to another. The same syndrome shared by more than two people may be called ''folie à trois'' ('three') or ''quatre'' ('four'); and further, ''folie en famille'' ('family madness') or even ''folie à plusieurs'' ('madness of several'). The disorder, first conceptualized in 19th-century French psychiatry by Charles Lasègue and Jules Falret, and is also known as Lasègue–Falret syndrome. Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-4 – 297.3) and induced delusional disorder (ICD-10 – F24), although the research literature largely uses the original name. This disorder is not in the current, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Ment ...
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Family Nexus
In psychology, a family nexus is a common viewpoint held and reinforced by the majority of family members regarding events in the family and relationships with the world. The term was coined by R. D. Laing, who believed that this nexus "exists only in so far as each person incarnates the nexus...maintaining his interiorization of the group unchanged". The concept is similar to the "family psychic apparatus (FPA)...an unconscious psychic basis, common to members of the family group, inducing a specific experience of belonging". Laing and schizophrenia Laing was particularly interested in schizophrenia, which he believed could be understood if seen from the viewpoint of the person concerned. He saw how a powerful family nexus could victimise one member, usually a child, who found themselves in the position of not being able to speak or even think the truth without being chastised by the group, who often had vested interests in perpetuating the family myth and excluding reality. In ...
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Dysfunctional Family
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior, and often child neglect or abuse and sometimes even all of the above on the part of individual parents occur continuously and regularly, leading other members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such families with the understanding that such a situation is normal. Dysfunctional families are primarily a result of two adults, one typically overtly abusive and the other codependent, and may also be affected by substance abuse or other forms of addiction, or sometimes by an untreated mental illness. Parents having grown up in a dysfunctional family may over-correct or emulate their own parents. In some cases, the dominant parent will abuse or neglect their children and the other parent will not object, misleading a child to assume blame. Perceptions and historical context A common misperception of dysfunctional families is the mistaken belief that the parents are on the verge of separation ...
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Double Bind
A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more reciprocally conflicting messages. In some scenarios (e.g. within families or romantic relationships) this can be emotionally distressing, creating a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), such that the person responding will automatically be perceived as in the wrong, no matter how they respond. This double bind prevents the person from either resolving the underlying dilemma or opting out of the situation. Double bind theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues in the 1950s,Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Haley, J. & Weakland, J., 1956, Toward a theory of schizophrenia.''Behavioral Science'', Vol. 1, 251–264. in a theory on the origins of schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion—the use of confusion ...
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Covert Incest
Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is a type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. The effects of covert incest on children when they become adults are thought to mimic actual incest, although to a lesser degree. This term describes interactions between a parent and child that are exclusive of sexual abuse. Concept ''Covert incest'' was defined in the 1980s as an emotionally abusive relationship between a parental figure and child that does not involve incest or sexual intercourse, though it involves similar interpersonal dynamics as a relationship between sexual partners. Defining such relationships as "incest" has led to criticism of the concept for dramatically loosening the definition of incest, making child abuse seem more prevalent than it actually is and being overused and unsubstantiated. Covert incest is described as occurring when a parent is unable or unwilling to maintain ...
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