Clinical Title: Using Virginia Satir’s Model to Create Healthy Families and Optimize Social Systems
Book Title: People Making or The New People Making (Either edition) by Virginia Satir
Book Description: Join us for the latest in our “Foundational Works” series, where we highlight important, foundational books and authors we feel every Clinical Social Worker should explore.
In this discussion, we will be exploring Virginia Satir, The Mother of Family Therapy, whose seminal book, People Making, and it’s updated edition, The New People Making, presents the reader with a systems-based model for healing and change that centers human relationships, communication, self worth, and the larger cultural context.
Before Satir, most counseling approaches focused on the individual who was presenting with problems, either of their own report or because their behaviors deviated the norms that their families and society could accept. Satir recognized that all behaviors operate only in the context of the specific system in which they are created, and that all behaviors have meaning and purpose. She acknowledged that creating a healthy family system is a complicated and challenging job. In these books, she demonstrates that effective communication is possible but is the personal responsibility of every member of the family system and of the system itself. She also postulates that in addition to family systems, sustained societal changes can happen only when we support the development of the self-worth and efficacy of each individual within a system, and her groundbreaking model of change has been utilized widely in the field of organizational development for decades. No family, organization, or society will be effective in the long term if the people aren’t supported and enabled to be the best people they can be. Satir’s writing demonstrates her respect for those people who bravely pursue the process of raising children – and by so doing influence “people-making”.
The book provides practical exercises for developing enhanced communication and illuminates the powerful forces extant in individuals shaping families.
Satir’s suggestions for forming healthy family relationships are:
1. Each person stands firmly on their own feet and is autonomous.
2. Each person can be emotionally honest.
3. Each person can ask for what they want.
4. Each person takes responsibility for their actions.
5. Each person keeps promises.
6. Each person will intend to be kind, fun, courteous, considerate, and real.
7. Each person is free to comment on what is going on
8. Each supports the other’s dreams, and cooperates instead of competing
Clinical Objectives:
By reading the book and participating in the discussion, participants will:
- Implement Satir’s exercises in vivo in small group format.
- Discuss specific family dynamics in which Satir’s theory may be applicable or ineffective.
- Examine case studies using Satir’s systems perspective.
About our Faciliators: Vicki Lipoff, LCSW and Deborah Shain, LCSW
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Vicki Lipoff, LCSW, has been in the field as a Clinical Social Worker since 2003, upon graduating from Widener University Center for Social Work at that time. Vicki currently works as a private practitioner in west Conshohocken, as well as a staff therapist for the group practice Psychology & Counseling Associates in Collegeville.
Vicki has previously been on staff at Widener University Graduate Center for Social Work as an adjunct faculty member and a Field Liaison from 2010-2017 and prior to that, gained professional experience at The Renfrew Center and Lower Merion Counseling Services.
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Deborah Shain, LCSW, BCD is long time active member of PSCSW, is Chair of PSCSW Professional Standards and Ethics Committee and serves on the PSCSW Board. In her Elkins Park private practice as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and education coach, she specializes in relationship therapy and treatment of adults seeking insight and growth regarding their behavior and interactions with family members and co-workers. An educator and author, in 1975 Shain earned her graduate degree in Clinical Social Work from the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, where she became a member of the faculty. At The Medical College of Pennsylvania, she created and directed courses in Geriatrics and Sexuality. At Cabrini College she taught Crisis Intervention and Group Dynamics. She is a member of the Department of Psychiatry at Drexel Medical School where she teaches psychiatry residents clinical skills addressing Sexuality and Principles of Sex Therapy. She authored medical education books, Study Skills and Test-Taking Strategies for Medical Students: Find and Use Your Personal Learning Style. published by Springer-Verlag.
CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS:
FOR PENNSYLVANIA SOCIAL WORKERS, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS, AND PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS:
This program is approved for 3 credits for professional workshops sponsored by the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work, a state affiliate of the Clinical Social Work Association listed in Section 47.36 of Title 49, Chapter 47 of the PA Code, State Board of Social Work Examiners.This program is also approved for 3 credits for professional workshops for marriage & family therapists (Section 48.36) and professional
counselors (Section 49.36).
FOR NEW JERSEY SOCIAL WORKERS: This program is approved for 3 clinical credits. Attendance at programs or courses given at state and national social work association conferences, where the criteria for membership is an academic degree in social work, are a valid source of continuing education credit (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-6.4(c)6)