Virginia Satir's Impact on Family Therapy

So welcome everyone. I am just so excited to talk about Virginia Satir and her work. And I think like many of you here, there's something about learning about Virginia Satir's work that is just so foundational, so transformational. It made such a huge impact for me. early in my career. And so, you know, I think some of the reason is she is, she was one of the only, you know, leading female figures in the field of mental health. Certainly one of the first women to have an approach where she's the leading figure, you know, of that approach. There are a handful of others, but she certainly was a giant and stands out and I think leaves a really clear impression on many of us. And so she is most closely associated with family therapy, but certainly her work is designed to work with individuals, couples, and families. Her later work in many ways was more focused on individuals and families. But she has had, I think, a huge impact on many of us personally as we entered the field, a guiding light. And so I'm just so excited to be here today to talk with you about how she, about her work and her approach. For those of you who are taking, you know, licensing exams in marriage and family therapy, you will likely see her on your exam. So she's particularly important for those who are seeking a license. But the truth is, I think she, what she has to teach the world is, is just huge. And so no matter which branch of mental health you are most closely affiliated with, I believe you will find a lot of inspiration in the work of Virginia Satir. So let's go ahead and get started. So the least you need to know in a nutshell. So Satir really brought unparalleled warmth and enthusiasm for the human potential. And so when you see her in action, when you read her words, I mean, her love for humanity is like palpable. You can just feel her enthusiasm, her hope for the clients that she is working with. And I think for many of us who are exposed to her work early in our careers, this is what really stands out, or at least what stood out for me in terms of just how she was different from some of the others who, you know, other theoreticians who are brilliant, have great ideas for how to, you know, help other people. But there was just what stood out for me, at least, was just her love for humanity was palpable. She really, she actually is unique in that she focuses both on the individual growth as well as family systemic interventions. And there's this wonderful balance about her work. She definitely falls within what we would call humanistic psychotherapies. But she really brings in this balance of individual and family dynamics. And as someone who is very much part of the family therapy community, her emphasis on individual growth really stands out. And so how did she facilitate change? We will talk a lot about the self of the therapist, self of the clinician today. So there's a lot about was how she related, who she was. I mean, it's like she just emanated, just radiated hope in the room. But she used a lot of experiential exercises. She used a lot of metaphors. She did communication coaching. But so much, again, came to just who she was when she was in the room. So for those of you who are familiar with my unifying framework of psychotherapy, I think it's helpful to look at... Just how Satir's work kind of maps onto this unifying framework. So the unifying framework in a nutshell looks at a behavioral level, an emotional, you know, emotional levels, cognitive and societal. And so we have all these, we have over 500 different, you know, therapeutic approaches and psychotherapy. And so it's really hard to keep them all straight. And so this unifying framework. is designed to help you see how all these kind of pieces fit together. It synthesizes all the different approaches. So when you look at Satir's work... In light of this unifying framework, what you're going to notice is that most of what her work does, how she describes it, is focused on the emotional level, which is true for all the humanistic approaches, phenomenological therapies. They're focusing on this emotional level. And when you think systemically, she's focusing on the emotional level of the system. people are interacting in a family system, how those emotions kind of move around the family system. And trust me, it's a whole other lecture, but these are obviously mapped on top of both behaviors, cognitions, and then societal discourses, right? So what you're going to see in her approach is that she's very much focused on this emotional level that includes both primary emotions, which are often referred to as attachment-based emotions, as well as the secondary emotions. meaning the kind of expressed emotions, anger, sadness, happiness, which you might see on the surface there. And, and then there's also what she does. And actually all of the humanistic therapists, if you look at even at like Fritz Perls and Carl Whitaker, they do a lot of work with complementary patterns. Okay. And, and someday I will write a whole book on complementary patterns across all the different schools of psychotherapy, but this is often where conceptualization happens. So for her, You're going to notice the complementary patterns in how we talk about these communication stances. And when we get into looking at emotions, she actually does, she doesn't use the word attachment, but a lot of what she's doing, I think from a 21st century lens using a unifying framework, we can call it as working on that attachment, the primary connection. She really focused on the triangle between the child and their two parents, which is attachment. And then we'll talk a lot about these communication stances, which is looking more at that secondary emotional level, what's expressed on top, on the surface. So when you put her on this unifying framework, you'll see this huge emphasis on the emotional level, as well as the complementary pattern. And virtually all of the humanistic approaches hit these kind of three out of the eight levels is really where they're focused. Now, it doesn't mean she never talks about behavior, never talks about cognition or societal narratives. But it just means when you put it into this larger framework of how all the different therapies work, hers kind of falls in this emotional while addressing complementarity. And it's a very classic kind of humanistic lens. So the juice, if you're familiar with my textbooks, I talk about the juice. And, you know, where this comes from is when I sat down to write my textbooks on family therapy, I also did all the counseling and psychotherapy theories. I really wanted to do each therapeutic approach justice. And so, you know, I thought, wow, to be, to warrant being put in a textbook, there's got to be some great wisdom here about being human. And so I looked at each approach and I said, if there's one thing that everyone who learns to be a mental health professional should know from this theory, what is it? And so if you look at my books, you'll see this juice section and it's. hopefully to invite you to be appreciative, even if this isn't the approach that you're going to use for the rest of your life, that you see some, you know, identify what I think is the most valuable part of the theory. Because I know when you go through those long theory textbooks, it's sometimes hard to remember all the details. And so these are what I found to be the most universally helpful concept for all mental health providers. So we are going to talk about this, her communication stances and her just understanding of human communication and why I think her communication stances and kind of theory or just way of describing communication is particularly useful for us when communicating to clients, as well as helping clients, you know, and understanding their communication patterns with each other. I have found these stances to be super, super helpful. When just talking with my own clients and understanding how to be, for me to be most useful to them or how I can communicate most effectively with them. So to start, she described something as what she called congruent communication. And you'll hear other humanistic clinicians use this term. And what she specifically meant, and she used these very simple little diagrams to describe it, is that as you are communicating, you acknowledge your own needs. perspectives, realities. You acknowledge the needs, perspectives of others, and then your communication is appropriate to the context. So context, self, and other are all appropriately, relatively equally acknowledged in your communication. And so that is what she considered healthy communication. Now, that doesn't mean that you pretend like you don't have needs or you minimize your needs, but it's more like being able to stay in touch with what your needs and your reality is not quieting that part of you, while still being able to recognize where the other person's reality is. And in most difficult communication, they're very different realities, needs, preferences, right? And then also just being appropriate. Are we at home? Are we at work? Are we at school? What's the context and what's considered appropriate for a given context? So this is the goal. And I would say this, when we look at all of these communication stances, I think the best way to think about it is when any of us kind of feel safe, most of us, hopefully, unless you have, I think what's called, but I'm would be called a personality disorder, but most of us can normally actually do this healthy communication when we feel safe, when our needs are being met, when, you know, all things being equal. It's when we feel threatened is when we shift into what she calls our survival stances. And so often I think of it as how much stress does it take a person to shift from congruent communication to using their survival stance? And in my when I, when I use the unifying framework, um, this, these concepts definitely layer and I think are at least correlated, um, with, if you're familiar with attachment, I know many people use attachment based, um, approaches these days. There's definitely overlap in my opinion, between the communication stances and attachment. Cause when you feel securely attached to someone, most of us appropriately communicate well, when we feel threatened, boy, do we don't. And the question is how much. How much conflict does it take for us to shift into our less healthy communication survival stances? And so you can think of personality disorders, they shift very quickly into those stances. And others of us, depending on our life experiences, especially our early life experiences, right? How quick does it make, how much conflict does it take for us to feel unsafe? So the survival stances, Satir said, develop. when we were young with our parents and, you know, parents got angry or we got scared. What did we do in relationship when we got, um, when we didn't feel safe, we didn't have a lot of coping skills, obviously when we were little. And so, and so what, what Satir said is because a little child can, you know, manage all of these under when they feel threatened, they're going to minimize one or more of these areas to just survive, right? parents yelling at you? Do you minimize your own needs, that of the other or the context, right? So which, you know, or it can be one or more of these areas. And so that is what Satir is looking at. That's how to understand these stances. And so Satir identified four basic stances that are called placating, blaming, super reasonable and irrelevant. And we're going to go into detail about each one of these. So Satir's theory was under here. when we feel threatened, right? As a child, we had to adopt one of these stances. All of us did, even if we had the best parents in the world, we had to adopt one or more of these. And so what did each of us do? And then she looked at how these play out in our adult relationships and obviously in families, how this may be playing out with kids, you know, in the system right now. You can definitely use one or more of these stances. It's interesting as a couples therapist with different partners, I've noticed that different people can use different stances. Like, you know, you can be placating in one relationship and blaming in another. So just depending on who your partner is in their survival stance, right? But predominantly, we all kind of default to one is just where we tend to go. So let's go ahead and look at these various stances. So the placating stance. is has been described in at least two ways and her later work um she she just she pictured it this way where the self is not acknowledged but the other and the context are and i have been um contacted by many uh by um some satire experts saying but no she sometimes said it was context versus self and if you look at some of her earlier works she actually grayed out context and self and it was just other got prioritized which is interesting I've never found literature written by Virginia Satir to explain why sometimes context and self are said is not acknowledged and other times it's just self. What does that mean for us who are trying to apply this to help people in the 21st century? What I would say is this, that you're going to meet placators who maybe just downplay their their own needs, desires, and wishes. And you'll also see others who may even have inappropriate, not acknowledge the context, so not have context-appropriate behaviors in terms of whatever's going on. You know, not appropriate for home, work, school, whoever might be in the room sort of thing. So there's certainly a huge variety in the ways that placating can take place. And Virginia Satir. kind of conceptualize this differently across her career. But the placaters tend to have what we would call people-pleasing tendencies. I just want to make you happy. I want to avoid any conflict. They're usually conflict avoidant. Just what do I need to do to make everyone happy? And for me, when I look at the unifying framework, this maps on, if you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality types, this is very much a feeling type. um, approach to like, let's not have conflict. Let's make other people feel better. That makes me feel good. Um, and so is there, if that's the case, that's my hypothesis, then, you know, you'll find more female types in most cultures will tend to be more placating or tend towards this type, or I would argue that they're socialized towards this type, however you want to think about it. But what you will find is that Placating types are the most likely to actually present for therapy compared to the other three we're going to talk about because they are sacrificing their needs for others. They are the quickest to become unhappy. And I will actually, I think you'll agree with me, you'll find that the majority, not all, but the vast majority of people who enter mental health as a profession tend to have this communication stance. I would say 80 to 90% of my students over the 30 years of training. had a placating stance and trust me there were always a few who had blaming stance and they you could watch them kind of clash in practicum courses in any course really. So this is a very common type that you're going to see possibly in yourself, in your colleagues, and in your clients and so this is a real important one to kind of understand some of the dynamics. So one of the things you will find with placating types is that they need to often be encouraged and prompted to feel safe to acknowledge their own thoughts, feelings, and needs. And actually, when you look at the work of Carl Rogers and a lot of humanists, this is your typical client, and that is the approach that they're using with them. So making sure that your placating types acknowledge their own thoughts, feelings, and needs. They often need some help and assistance developing more assertive or clear communication of their own needs. They're very slow to do that. And it's almost like if everyone else is OK, well, now I can ask for what I need type of thing. Which, although in the moment it works great in many relationships, over time it doesn't work long term because the resentment builds up. So it is something they need to address. And that's a place where we can be helpful to them. In general, this type. is going to have better long-term outcomes, not immediate outcomes, but better long-term wellness if we can use some less directive methods because they can be very compliant, okay? Now, I've actually done some research studies. One of my research studies, I was interviewing people who had both experiences with male and female clinicians, mental health providers, and it was fascinating. I met... several people who said they were total placators. And they said, yeah, I would just go to session. I would go in there and I would find a problem I could tell my therapist about, and then I would let them solve it. And I would leave and not actually feel better at all, except for knowing that I made the therapist feel better. I was like, wow, you kind of faked therapy? Like that was crazy. So sometimes these less directive methods kind of require... Require them to go in and use their, what do you call it again? Their identify needs, wants, practice voicing, all of that. So even, but if you are using more direct methods, you definitely want to use more like multiple choice options. You never just want to give this person one way to look at something or one homework assignment. You want to have them choose because that forces them to. voice their thoughts, their opinions, and their feelings, which they may not have a lot of experience or comfort in doing. And so with clients like this, I'm always, always. give them a multiple way of doing something so they always are having to speak up and share what they're thinking and they just can't agree with me and go on. So and in fact with one of these clients I do not feel like I have real strong relationship or real rapport with them until they tell me I am wrong. And so with these clients I am looking and this is the majority of clients I really want them to disagree with me if I say something. And that is why the multiple choice thing can invite that and make them feel safe to do that. And then when, if ever I say something and they correct me or they say, yeah, that doesn't, I don't think that's what's happening for me. I don't think that fits for me. Then I'm like, yes, I have the real person in front of me. And I will just let you know that many clients hide a lot from their therapist or counselor. until they really, really feel safe. And if someone you're working with tends to have the placating style, I don't trust if they say I'm so great. I don't trust if they say that that really helped. That's just what they're going to say. And I know that they really feel safe with me when they tell me I'm wrong. So that is what you look for in a placater. Now, the blaming stance is the polar opposite. And you will notice if you do couples work that placaters and blamers like They go together like they're two peas in a pod. They're two puzzle pieces that fit together. So their coping mechanisms are complementary. And so these relationships tend to work, work, but eventually need therapy. So the blamers that flip opposite, they minimize what the other person is thinking and feeling and focus and prioritize their own needs, opinions, wants, and desires. And a similar... So as one of my colleagues has pointed out that earlier in her work, she actually grayed out the context and the other for the placater. So you can have a range of how much context they actually acknowledge versus versus not. And so it just depends. And just like the placater, you're going to see this behavior under stress or when they feel threatened, they go straight to blaming. And so when you're working with a couple, the blamer and the other part, you know, they're. partner says that, you know, they're hurt, you'll often see this. Sometimes you'll just see defensiveness, but the blamers will get into a very strong, I mean, you see defensiveness in most of us. Okay. Most humans will go straight to blaming or defending at least, but the blamers will stay in that blaming stance and have a much harder time seeing the other person's perspective. So, um, For blamers, as it sounds like, they see the problem as being the other people, the world, everything else out there, but it's usually not them. And so it's really interesting and it's very important to distinguish between someone whose fundamental approach is more placating versus more blaming. And because blamers, in polar opposite to their placating, placaters, they actually... really prefer for us to be very direct, upfront, to not filter. And what's strange, when you're building a therapeutic relationship with a blaming type, you don't want to be too empathetic. You don't want to be too soft and warm and gentle. They will actually respect you less. Certain blamers will definitely respect you less, and they need to see some strength as well. directness, not sugarcoating thing. Blamers find that mental health providers who are sugarcoating everything rather than being, just tell me like it is, tell it to me straight, is generally what a blamer is going to respect when they're communicating with a professional. Not necessarily their partner, but definitely with a professional. So when you're working with blamers, you're going to be doing a lot of helping to make sure that they actually can identify the thoughts, needs, desires. of others, right? Because that's not their natural place that they go under threat. They're thinking about what they need, not what the other person might be thinking or what they might need. And so, especially if you're doing couple family work, you're working on helping them acknowledge that other person's thoughts, needs, and responsibilities. And so, if you're working with a couple or a family doing this, you're going to be, you know, having the other person who the blamer may not be understanding their perspective. voice that much more clearly. And so if you've got a very common, have a placater blamer partnership or, you know, in a family or a couple, and so you'll be working with them and having the placater work on voicing their needs, you know, appropriately to the blamer, for the blamer to understand those as well. And so learning how to communicate in respectful ways is real important for us to be helping our blaming clients to develop that skill so that they're able to acknowledge all three of these areas. So the super reasonable stance. So these last two stances you will notice as you begin to work using these concepts as a mental health professional is the last two are definitely tougher clients to work with. And I think these are almost an order of ease. The placating types are the easiest to work with. The blamers are a little bit tougher. And when you get to super reasonable and we're going to get to irrelevant, wow, it is tougher for us as mental health professionals to intervene. And you'll notice that with the super reasonable type, they're not acknowledging self or other, but they're really just focused on context, right? So you only have one leg of the tripod to stand on here. And, and so this is, this go, this work typically will go a bit slower. And so they minimize the needs of both self and others, right? They're not, they're not even thinking about their own feelings or the other person's feelings. They, they, a super reasonable type will have some system of logic, right? It can be some kind of rational logic. It can be legalistic, you know, logic. I've seen, you know, lawyers, right? It can be a religious doctrine and a system of religious rules. That does not mean everyone who's religious is super reasonable, but there's some people who will latch on to some sort of religious doctrine and kind of take it to this level where it doesn't matter what you're thinking, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what you're feeling, what your needs are, we are going to follow the letter of a law or this system of logic to an extreme where it is, you know, hurtful to people and creating the types of issues that they're coming for help with. So... To work successfully with this type of person, you as a mental health provider, needs to identify, respect, and work within this system of logic. It doesn't mean you validate it. It doesn't mean you never, you know, comment on it. But you've got to at least get a clue. And you have to track and understand how this person is thinking and understanding to get any leverage. Because these types of clients can be hard. harder to get leverage. I've seen this too. Some parents will take a very super reasonable stance about how to parent, right? It's like, this is what worked, you know, this is what happened when I was a kid, or this is, you know, it worked for my first kid, better work for my second kid. So you can even see people sometimes take these super reasonable stances. And it's like, newsflash, you know, just because it worked for your first child does not mean that same parenting interventions are going to work for your second child. Very difficult lesson for all. parents like me to learn. They're just like, whoa, two totally different things, right? Systems that work. But if you're just so rigid and you're like, I'm going to use this parenting technique, even though it's not working because it should work, right? That is not a reasonable stance to have. So people can have super reasonable, even in just certain areas of their life or their relationships. So that's the super reasonable, but you're going to have to acknowledge and cite and work with. um, the parent, whatever this system of logic is that they have prioritized over how it's actually playing out in the real world. And so you're helping them to really recognize the internal subjective realities. I'm going to pick on parenting styles. So, you know, if you have one kid who, like, let's say you have a kid who's got more of the blaming stance or a thinking type on Myers-Briggs, logic, rules, illogical rules, um, really clear consequences. You know, and often maybe a sterner stance works better, right? And then let's say your next kid's more of a placating type or a feeling, which is like correlates with a feeling type of the Myers-Briggs. The exact same interventions and how you lay down the law with the first kid can totally blow up in your face with the second kid because they're just wired differently. And so this is where helping parents kind of understand that you're going to look at their logic, look at how they're, you know, trying to apply it. And you're going to have to often just offer up some other explanations. that that fit with their worldview right and help them understand so that they can shift um so and super reasonable types um you can help them sometimes even just using their bodily reactions how were you feeling that in your body um where the expectations came from so so doing some discussion around the dominant discourses around you know what parents should be doing or kids what you know a man versus a woman whatever what partners do and and so and just looking at the practical realities. Sometimes it's like, but is this working? I know you believe it should work, but it's not working. So where do we go from there? So there's a lot of finding the right way to frame something so that it makes sense to the super reasonable type or to any one of us who gets into a super reasonable stance around something where we have this system of logic that we're forcing it to work. And so there's a little more, you've got to massage it, you've got to frame it just right. And so your languaging around how you say things, you'll notice has to be precise to work with a super reasonable type. Okay. Last, we have the irrelevant type. And so this is the type where when they feel threatened, they're not acknowledging self or other thoughts, needs, wishes, wants, desires, perspectives. or the context. These are probably, you'll know you have an irrelevant type when it comes, when you're in session, you're trying to talk about anything serious. It just feels like they're squirrely. They just like zigzag all around the room. You're like, let's, let's try to talk about your feelings, you know, related to this loss. And you know, then they're making jokes or they're switching the subject and they're jumping all around. You feel like you just can never pin them down. Right. Yeah. So. It's reminding me of the song of how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? That is irrelevant type. And I know my supervisees will come in and they're just like, I just can't. It feels like I can't get anywhere. And when we finally get to talk about the real issue, they're like, poof, they're off to something else. So they're and they're obviously they're doing it because this is how, you know, typically they had more difficult childhoods. And so when we get to more sensitive issues. They're just a lot fewer coping mechanisms. They don't feel very safe at all as soon as we get to more vulnerable parts of their life. But usually these folks have had a fair amount of abuse. So there is just avoidance and not necessarily in a mean way. So, you know, they have that kind of class. They can have that class clown energy where it's always ha ha funny. They can kind of just have more tangential type of things. But oftentimes the irrelevant can be associated with more severe forms of pathology, including schizophrenia, which is one of the areas where many of the early family therapists were working with, but they don't have a consistent grounding. So when working with the irrelevant type, you really want to create a lot of safety and to not misinterpret some of the... jumping around as resistance or with any negative intention. This is like they never learned to feel safe. They did not have a lot of safety growing up. And this is how they learned to survive in very difficult environments. So safety is just key here. You're going to move slower with these clients and like creating safety. And I let them bounce all around. Like I just don't even let that phase me too much. And I do try to follow them and then I gently bring them. back and then we can goof off and then we can come back. And so I try to work with their energy rather than corral it. And when you try to corral the irrelevant type, you're often not going to, you're going to be frustrated and they are going to actually trust you less and do more of the irrelevant behavior. So with irrelevant types, you're going to have to, you know, you're going to have to work with them. You're going to have to let them settle and we'll do a little work here. And then they flit off. you know, and then I can gently, gently bring them back and we do a little more work here. And then they flit off and that's, and you kind of work with that. And then they can trust that it is safe to talk about these things here. So you're building safety with these people first and foremost. And so you'll also of course, be helping them recognize their own thoughts and feelings, recognize that of others. And then, you know, noticing what's appropriate or not appropriate for a given context like work, home, school, et cetera. Okay. So, okay. I'm seeing a long, I'm going to see if I can answer this. I saw a question is coming in here as I'm recording this live. Okay. Yeah. This is all about the icebergs and six levels of experience. We will get into some of that. So awesome. Awesome. So I will. We will continue working, but hopefully these, the communication stances that Satir talks about, you can use those to really help you navigate the therapeutic relationship, know how to talk to people in ways and communicate with them in ways that really is effective for the client and helps them develop in these areas, develop the ability to communicate better with others as well as ourselves.

And so, you know, I think some of the reason is she is, she was one of the only, you know, leading female figures in the field of mental health. Certainly one of the first women to have an approach where she's the leading figure, you know, of that approach. There are a handful of others, but she certainly was a giant and stands out and I think leaves a really clear impression on many of us. And so she is most closely associated with family therapy, but certainly her work is designed to work with individuals, couples, and families.

Her later work in many ways was more focused on individuals and families. But she has had, I think, a huge impact on many of us personally as we entered the field, a guiding light. And so I'm just so excited to be here today to talk with you about how she, about her work and her approach.

For those of you who are taking, you know, licensing exams in marriage and family therapy, you will likely see her on your exam. So she's particularly important for those who are seeking a license. But the truth is, I think she, what she has to teach the world is, is just huge. And so no matter which branch of mental health you are most closely affiliated with, I believe you will find a lot of inspiration in the work of Virginia Satir. So let's go ahead and get started.

So the least you need to know in a nutshell. So Satir really brought unparalleled warmth and enthusiasm for the human potential. And so when you see her in action, when you read her words, I mean, her love for humanity is like palpable.

You can just feel her enthusiasm, her hope for the clients that she is working with. And I think for many of us who are exposed to her work early in our careers, this is what really stands out, or at least what stood out for me in terms of just how she was different from some of the others who, you know, other theoreticians who are brilliant, have great ideas for how to, you know, help other people. But there was just what stood out for me, at least, was just her love for humanity was palpable.

She really, she actually is unique in that she focuses both on the individual growth as well as family systemic interventions. And there's this wonderful balance about her work. She definitely falls within what we would call humanistic psychotherapies. But she really brings in this balance of individual and family dynamics.

And as someone who is very much part of the family therapy community, her emphasis on individual growth really stands out. And so how did she facilitate change? We will talk a lot about the self of the therapist, self of the clinician today. So there's a lot about was how she related, who she was. I mean, it's like she just emanated, just radiated hope in the room.

But she used a lot of experiential exercises. She used a lot of metaphors. She did communication coaching.

But so much, again, came to just who she was when she was in the room. So for those of you who are familiar with my unifying framework of psychotherapy, I think it's helpful to look at... Just how Satir's work kind of maps onto this unifying framework.

So the unifying framework in a nutshell looks at a behavioral level, an emotional, you know, emotional levels, cognitive and societal. And so we have all these, we have over 500 different, you know, therapeutic approaches and psychotherapy. And so it's really hard to keep them all straight.

And so this unifying framework. is designed to help you see how all these kind of pieces fit together. It synthesizes all the different approaches. So when you look at Satir's work...

In light of this unifying framework, what you're going to notice is that most of what her work does, how she describes it, is focused on the emotional level, which is true for all the humanistic approaches, phenomenological therapies. They're focusing on this emotional level. And when you think systemically, she's focusing on the emotional level of the system.

people are interacting in a family system, how those emotions kind of move around the family system. And trust me, it's a whole other lecture, but these are obviously mapped on top of both behaviors, cognitions, and then societal discourses, right? So what you're going to see in her approach is that she's very much focused on this emotional level that includes both primary emotions, which are often referred to as attachment-based emotions, as well as the secondary emotions.

meaning the kind of expressed emotions, anger, sadness, happiness, which you might see on the surface there. And, and then there's also what she does. And actually all of the humanistic therapists, if you look at even at like Fritz Perls and Carl Whitaker, they do a lot of work with complementary patterns.

Okay. And, and someday I will write a whole book on complementary patterns across all the different schools of psychotherapy, but this is often where conceptualization happens. So for her, You're going to notice the complementary patterns in how we talk about these communication stances. And when we get into looking at emotions, she actually does, she doesn't use the word attachment, but a lot of what she's doing, I think from a 21st century lens using a unifying framework, we can call it as working on that attachment, the primary connection.

She really focused on the triangle between the child and their two parents, which is attachment. And then we'll talk a lot about these communication stances, which is looking more at that secondary emotional level, what's expressed on top, on the surface. So when you put her on this unifying framework, you'll see this huge emphasis on the emotional level, as well as the complementary pattern. And virtually all of the humanistic approaches hit these kind of three out of the eight levels is really where they're focused.

Now, it doesn't mean she never talks about behavior, never talks about cognition or societal narratives. But it just means when you put it into this larger framework of how all the different therapies work, hers kind of falls in this emotional while addressing complementarity. And it's a very classic kind of humanistic lens. So the juice, if you're familiar with my textbooks, I talk about the juice. And, you know, where this comes from is when I sat down to write my textbooks on family therapy, I also did all the counseling and psychotherapy theories.

I really wanted to do each therapeutic approach justice. And so, you know, I thought, wow, to be, to warrant being put in a textbook, there's got to be some great wisdom here about being human. And so I looked at each approach and I said, if there's one thing that everyone who learns to be a mental health professional should know from this theory, what is it?

And so if you look at my books, you'll see this juice section and it's. hopefully to invite you to be appreciative, even if this isn't the approach that you're going to use for the rest of your life, that you see some, you know, identify what I think is the most valuable part of the theory. Because I know when you go through those long theory textbooks, it's sometimes hard to remember all the details. And so these are what I found to be the most universally helpful concept for all mental health providers.

So we are going to talk about this, her communication stances and her just understanding of human communication and why I think her communication stances and kind of theory or just way of describing communication is particularly useful for us when communicating to clients, as well as helping clients, you know, and understanding their communication patterns with each other. I have found these stances to be super, super helpful. When just talking with my own clients and understanding how to be, for me to be most useful to them or how I can communicate most effectively with them. So to start, she described something as what she called congruent communication. And you'll hear other humanistic clinicians use this term.

And what she specifically meant, and she used these very simple little diagrams to describe it, is that as you are communicating, you acknowledge your own needs. perspectives, realities. You acknowledge the needs, perspectives of others, and then your communication is appropriate to the context. So context, self, and other are all appropriately, relatively equally acknowledged in your communication.

And so that is what she considered healthy communication. Now, that doesn't mean that you pretend like you don't have needs or you minimize your needs, but it's more like being able to stay in touch with what your needs and your reality is not quieting that part of you, while still being able to recognize where the other person's reality is. And in most difficult communication, they're very different realities, needs, preferences, right?

And then also just being appropriate. Are we at home? Are we at work?

Are we at school? What's the context and what's considered appropriate for a given context? So this is the goal. And I would say this, when we look at all of these communication stances, I think the best way to think about it is when any of us kind of feel safe, most of us, hopefully, unless you have, I think what's called, but I'm would be called a personality disorder, but most of us can normally actually do this healthy communication when we feel safe, when our needs are being met, when, you know, all things being equal.

It's when we feel threatened is when we shift into what she calls our survival stances. And so often I think of it as how much stress does it take a person to shift from congruent communication to using their survival stance? And in my when I, when I use the unifying framework, um, this, these concepts definitely layer and I think are at least correlated, um, with, if you're familiar with attachment, I know many people use attachment based, um, approaches these days. There's definitely overlap in my opinion, between the communication stances and attachment.

Cause when you feel securely attached to someone, most of us appropriately communicate well, when we feel threatened, boy, do we don't. And the question is how much. How much conflict does it take for us to shift into our less healthy communication survival stances? And so you can think of personality disorders, they shift very quickly into those stances.

And others of us, depending on our life experiences, especially our early life experiences, right? How quick does it make, how much conflict does it take for us to feel unsafe? So the survival stances, Satir said, develop. when we were young with our parents and, you know, parents got angry or we got scared.

What did we do in relationship when we got, um, when we didn't feel safe, we didn't have a lot of coping skills, obviously when we were little. And so, and so what, what Satir said is because a little child can, you know, manage all of these under when they feel threatened, they're going to minimize one or more of these areas to just survive, right? parents yelling at you? Do you minimize your own needs, that of the other or the context, right?

So which, you know, or it can be one or more of these areas. And so that is what Satir is looking at. That's how to understand these stances.

And so Satir identified four basic stances that are called placating, blaming, super reasonable and irrelevant. And we're going to go into detail about each one of these. So Satir's theory was under here.

when we feel threatened, right? As a child, we had to adopt one of these stances. All of us did, even if we had the best parents in the world, we had to adopt one or more of these.

And so what did each of us do? And then she looked at how these play out in our adult relationships and obviously in families, how this may be playing out with kids, you know, in the system right now. You can definitely use one or more of these stances. It's interesting as a couples therapist with different partners, I've noticed that different people can use different stances. Like, you know, you can be placating in one relationship and blaming in another.

So just depending on who your partner is in their survival stance, right? But predominantly, we all kind of default to one is just where we tend to go. So let's go ahead and look at these various stances.

So the placating stance. is has been described in at least two ways and her later work um she she just she pictured it this way where the self is not acknowledged but the other and the context are and i have been um contacted by many uh by um some satire experts saying but no she sometimes said it was context versus self and if you look at some of her earlier works she actually grayed out context and self and it was just other got prioritized which is interesting I've never found literature written by Virginia Satir to explain why sometimes context and self are said is not acknowledged and other times it's just self. What does that mean for us who are trying to apply this to help people in the 21st century? What I would say is this, that you're going to meet placators who maybe just downplay their their own needs, desires, and wishes.

And you'll also see others who may even have inappropriate, not acknowledge the context, so not have context-appropriate behaviors in terms of whatever's going on. You know, not appropriate for home, work, school, whoever might be in the room sort of thing. So there's certainly a huge variety in the ways that placating can take place.

And Virginia Satir. kind of conceptualize this differently across her career. But the placaters tend to have what we would call people-pleasing tendencies.

I just want to make you happy. I want to avoid any conflict. They're usually conflict avoidant. Just what do I need to do to make everyone happy? And for me, when I look at the unifying framework, this maps on, if you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality types, this is very much a feeling type.

um, approach to like, let's not have conflict. Let's make other people feel better. That makes me feel good.

Um, and so is there, if that's the case, that's my hypothesis, then, you know, you'll find more female types in most cultures will tend to be more placating or tend towards this type, or I would argue that they're socialized towards this type, however you want to think about it. But what you will find is that Placating types are the most likely to actually present for therapy compared to the other three we're going to talk about because they are sacrificing their needs for others. They are the quickest to become unhappy. And I will actually, I think you'll agree with me, you'll find that the majority, not all, but the vast majority of people who enter mental health as a profession tend to have this communication stance. I would say 80 to 90% of my students over the 30 years of training.

had a placating stance and trust me there were always a few who had blaming stance and they you could watch them kind of clash in practicum courses in any course really. So this is a very common type that you're going to see possibly in yourself, in your colleagues, and in your clients and so this is a real important one to kind of understand some of the dynamics. So one of the things you will find with placating types is that they need to often be encouraged and prompted to feel safe to acknowledge their own thoughts, feelings, and needs. And actually, when you look at the work of Carl Rogers and a lot of humanists, this is your typical client, and that is the approach that they're using with them.

So making sure that your placating types acknowledge their own thoughts, feelings, and needs. They often need some help and assistance developing more assertive or clear communication of their own needs. They're very slow to do that. And it's almost like if everyone else is OK, well, now I can ask for what I need type of thing. Which, although in the moment it works great in many relationships, over time it doesn't work long term because the resentment builds up.

So it is something they need to address. And that's a place where we can be helpful to them. In general, this type. is going to have better long-term outcomes, not immediate outcomes, but better long-term wellness if we can use some less directive methods because they can be very compliant, okay?

Now, I've actually done some research studies. One of my research studies, I was interviewing people who had both experiences with male and female clinicians, mental health providers, and it was fascinating. I met... several people who said they were total placators. And they said, yeah, I would just go to session.

I would go in there and I would find a problem I could tell my therapist about, and then I would let them solve it. And I would leave and not actually feel better at all, except for knowing that I made the therapist feel better. I was like, wow, you kind of faked therapy? Like that was crazy.

So sometimes these less directive methods kind of require... Require them to go in and use their, what do you call it again? Their identify needs, wants, practice voicing, all of that.

So even, but if you are using more direct methods, you definitely want to use more like multiple choice options. You never just want to give this person one way to look at something or one homework assignment. You want to have them choose because that forces them to. voice their thoughts, their opinions, and their feelings, which they may not have a lot of experience or comfort in doing.

And so with clients like this, I'm always, always. give them a multiple way of doing something so they always are having to speak up and share what they're thinking and they just can't agree with me and go on. So and in fact with one of these clients I do not feel like I have real strong relationship or real rapport with them until they tell me I am wrong.

And so with these clients I am looking and this is the majority of clients I really want them to disagree with me if I say something. And that is why the multiple choice thing can invite that and make them feel safe to do that. And then when, if ever I say something and they correct me or they say, yeah, that doesn't, I don't think that's what's happening for me.

I don't think that fits for me. Then I'm like, yes, I have the real person in front of me. And I will just let you know that many clients hide a lot from their therapist or counselor. until they really, really feel safe. And if someone you're working with tends to have the placating style, I don't trust if they say I'm so great.

I don't trust if they say that that really helped. That's just what they're going to say. And I know that they really feel safe with me when they tell me I'm wrong. So that is what you look for in a placater. Now, the blaming stance is the polar opposite.

And you will notice if you do couples work that placaters and blamers like They go together like they're two peas in a pod. They're two puzzle pieces that fit together. So their coping mechanisms are complementary. And so these relationships tend to work, work, but eventually need therapy. So the blamers that flip opposite, they minimize what the other person is thinking and feeling and focus and prioritize their own needs, opinions, wants, and desires.

And a similar... So as one of my colleagues has pointed out that earlier in her work, she actually grayed out the context and the other for the placater. So you can have a range of how much context they actually acknowledge versus versus not.

And so it just depends. And just like the placater, you're going to see this behavior under stress or when they feel threatened, they go straight to blaming. And so when you're working with a couple, the blamer and the other part, you know, they're.

partner says that, you know, they're hurt, you'll often see this. Sometimes you'll just see defensiveness, but the blamers will get into a very strong, I mean, you see defensiveness in most of us. Okay.

Most humans will go straight to blaming or defending at least, but the blamers will stay in that blaming stance and have a much harder time seeing the other person's perspective. So, um, For blamers, as it sounds like, they see the problem as being the other people, the world, everything else out there, but it's usually not them. And so it's really interesting and it's very important to distinguish between someone whose fundamental approach is more placating versus more blaming.

And because blamers, in polar opposite to their placating, placaters, they actually... really prefer for us to be very direct, upfront, to not filter. And what's strange, when you're building a therapeutic relationship with a blaming type, you don't want to be too empathetic.

You don't want to be too soft and warm and gentle. They will actually respect you less. Certain blamers will definitely respect you less, and they need to see some strength as well. directness, not sugarcoating thing. Blamers find that mental health providers who are sugarcoating everything rather than being, just tell me like it is, tell it to me straight, is generally what a blamer is going to respect when they're communicating with a professional.

Not necessarily their partner, but definitely with a professional. So when you're working with blamers, you're going to be doing a lot of helping to make sure that they actually can identify the thoughts, needs, desires. of others, right? Because that's not their natural place that they go under threat. They're thinking about what they need, not what the other person might be thinking or what they might need.

And so, especially if you're doing couple family work, you're working on helping them acknowledge that other person's thoughts, needs, and responsibilities. And so, if you're working with a couple or a family doing this, you're going to be, you know, having the other person who the blamer may not be understanding their perspective. voice that much more clearly. And so if you've got a very common, have a placater blamer partnership or, you know, in a family or a couple, and so you'll be working with them and having the placater work on voicing their needs, you know, appropriately to the blamer, for the blamer to understand those as well.

And so learning how to communicate in respectful ways is real important for us to be helping our blaming clients to develop that skill so that they're able to acknowledge all three of these areas. So the super reasonable stance. So these last two stances you will notice as you begin to work using these concepts as a mental health professional is the last two are definitely tougher clients to work with. And I think these are almost an order of ease.

The placating types are the easiest to work with. The blamers are a little bit tougher. And when you get to super reasonable and we're going to get to irrelevant, wow, it is tougher for us as mental health professionals to intervene.

And you'll notice that with the super reasonable type, they're not acknowledging self or other, but they're really just focused on context, right? So you only have one leg of the tripod to stand on here. And, and so this is, this go, this work typically will go a bit slower. And so they minimize the needs of both self and others, right? They're not, they're not even thinking about their own feelings or the other person's feelings.

They, they, a super reasonable type will have some system of logic, right? It can be some kind of rational logic. It can be legalistic, you know, logic.

I've seen, you know, lawyers, right? It can be a religious doctrine and a system of religious rules. That does not mean everyone who's religious is super reasonable, but there's some people who will latch on to some sort of religious doctrine and kind of take it to this level where it doesn't matter what you're thinking, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what you're feeling, what your needs are, we are going to follow the letter of a law or this system of logic to an extreme where it is, you know, hurtful to people and creating the types of issues that they're coming for help with.

So... To work successfully with this type of person, you as a mental health provider, needs to identify, respect, and work within this system of logic. It doesn't mean you validate it. It doesn't mean you never, you know, comment on it.

But you've got to at least get a clue. And you have to track and understand how this person is thinking and understanding to get any leverage. Because these types of clients can be hard.

harder to get leverage. I've seen this too. Some parents will take a very super reasonable stance about how to parent, right?

It's like, this is what worked, you know, this is what happened when I was a kid, or this is, you know, it worked for my first kid, better work for my second kid. So you can even see people sometimes take these super reasonable stances. And it's like, newsflash, you know, just because it worked for your first child does not mean that same parenting interventions are going to work for your second child.

Very difficult lesson for all. parents like me to learn. They're just like, whoa, two totally different things, right? Systems that work. But if you're just so rigid and you're like, I'm going to use this parenting technique, even though it's not working because it should work, right?

That is not a reasonable stance to have. So people can have super reasonable, even in just certain areas of their life or their relationships. So that's the super reasonable, but you're going to have to acknowledge and cite and work with. um, the parent, whatever this system of logic is that they have prioritized over how it's actually playing out in the real world. And so you're helping them to really recognize the internal subjective realities.

I'm going to pick on parenting styles. So, you know, if you have one kid who, like, let's say you have a kid who's got more of the blaming stance or a thinking type on Myers-Briggs, logic, rules, illogical rules, um, really clear consequences. You know, and often maybe a sterner stance works better, right? And then let's say your next kid's more of a placating type or a feeling, which is like correlates with a feeling type of the Myers-Briggs. The exact same interventions and how you lay down the law with the first kid can totally blow up in your face with the second kid because they're just wired differently.

And so this is where helping parents kind of understand that you're going to look at their logic, look at how they're, you know, trying to apply it. And you're going to have to often just offer up some other explanations. that that fit with their worldview right and help them understand so that they can shift um so and super reasonable types um you can help them sometimes even just using their bodily reactions how were you feeling that in your body um where the expectations came from so so doing some discussion around the dominant discourses around you know what parents should be doing or kids what you know a man versus a woman whatever what partners do and and so and just looking at the practical realities. Sometimes it's like, but is this working? I know you believe it should work, but it's not working.

So where do we go from there? So there's a lot of finding the right way to frame something so that it makes sense to the super reasonable type or to any one of us who gets into a super reasonable stance around something where we have this system of logic that we're forcing it to work. And so there's a little more, you've got to massage it, you've got to frame it just right. And so your languaging around how you say things, you'll notice has to be precise to work with a super reasonable type. Okay.

Last, we have the irrelevant type. And so this is the type where when they feel threatened, they're not acknowledging self or other thoughts, needs, wishes, wants, desires, perspectives. or the context.

These are probably, you'll know you have an irrelevant type when it comes, when you're in session, you're trying to talk about anything serious. It just feels like they're squirrely. They just like zigzag all around the room.

You're like, let's, let's try to talk about your feelings, you know, related to this loss. And you know, then they're making jokes or they're switching the subject and they're jumping all around. You feel like you just can never pin them down. Right. Yeah.

So. It's reminding me of the song of how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

That is irrelevant type. And I know my supervisees will come in and they're just like, I just can't. It feels like I can't get anywhere.

And when we finally get to talk about the real issue, they're like, poof, they're off to something else. So they're and they're obviously they're doing it because this is how, you know, typically they had more difficult childhoods. And so when we get to more sensitive issues. They're just a lot fewer coping mechanisms. They don't feel very safe at all as soon as we get to more vulnerable parts of their life.

But usually these folks have had a fair amount of abuse. So there is just avoidance and not necessarily in a mean way. So, you know, they have that kind of class. They can have that class clown energy where it's always ha ha funny.

They can kind of just have more tangential type of things. But oftentimes the irrelevant can be associated with more severe forms of pathology, including schizophrenia, which is one of the areas where many of the early family therapists were working with, but they don't have a consistent grounding. So when working with the irrelevant type, you really want to create a lot of safety and to not misinterpret some of the...

jumping around as resistance or with any negative intention. This is like they never learned to feel safe. They did not have a lot of safety growing up. And this is how they learned to survive in very difficult environments.

So safety is just key here. You're going to move slower with these clients and like creating safety. And I let them bounce all around.

Like I just don't even let that phase me too much. And I do try to follow them and then I gently bring them. back and then we can goof off and then we can come back.

And so I try to work with their energy rather than corral it. And when you try to corral the irrelevant type, you're often not going to, you're going to be frustrated and they are going to actually trust you less and do more of the irrelevant behavior. So with irrelevant types, you're going to have to, you know, you're going to have to work with them. You're going to have to let them settle and we'll do a little work here.

And then they flit off. you know, and then I can gently, gently bring them back and we do a little more work here. And then they flit off and that's, and you kind of work with that.

And then they can trust that it is safe to talk about these things here. So you're building safety with these people first and foremost. And so you'll also of course, be helping them recognize their own thoughts and feelings, recognize that of others.

And then, you know, noticing what's appropriate or not appropriate for a given context like work, home, school, et cetera. Okay. So, okay. I'm seeing a long, I'm going to see if I can answer this.

I saw a question is coming in here as I'm recording this live. Okay. Yeah. This is all about the icebergs and six levels of experience. We will get into some of that.

So awesome. Awesome. So I will.

We will continue working, but hopefully these, the communication stances that Satir talks about, you can use those to really help you navigate the therapeutic relationship, know how to talk to people in ways and communicate with them in ways that really is effective for the client and helps them develop in these areas, develop the ability to communicate better with others as well as ourselves.

Transcript for:Virginia Satir's Impact on Family Therapy

Transcript for:
Virginia Satir's Impact on Family Therapy