The Family Interactional Perspective: A Study and Examination of the Work of Don D. Jackson

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the primary contributions of the late Don D. Jackson. It analyzes and attempts to unify the central concepts of what the first referred to as "conjoint family therapy." Emphasis in upon the theoretical components leading to the development of a behaviorally oriented, nontransference, focused-treatment format, labeled by the author as "family interactional psychotherapy."

Family Study and Nursing Research

“…Although their constructs were not standardized and their work was primarily confined to the practice of family therapy, communication theorists made a significant impact on the direction of family theory building. Their dynamic and holistic approach corresponded with a rise in the systems theory perspective and moved from a static structural-functional perspective toward a more open view of the family system (Bavelas & Segal, 1982;Greenberg, 1977;Walsh, 1982). Within the family field, the emphasis on "grand theory" building has decreased, and interest in multiple middle-range theories has grown.…”

Multiple impact therapy : evaluation and design for future study

“…The communications approach to family therapy draws from the general body of communications theory in its fundamental assumption that a social unit may be understood by the study of its communication system (Greenberg, 1977 has been noted to be both a cause and effect of successful communication insofar as it facilitates accurate perceptions of information, cooperation, and self-regulation (Cronkhite, 1976;Egan, 1975). Communication failure may result from ambiguity, when a family member gives verbal and nonverbal cues which contradict one another, or from a double-bind situation, when a paradoxical message implies that the listener should engage in two mutually exclusive behaviors simultaneously (Bateson, Jackson, Haley, & Weakland, 1956).…”

A Formal Explication of the Concept of Family Homeostasis

“…The explicandum in this explication consists of the concepts listed in the title of this section, as they have been used, discussed and illustrated in the relevant literature. See, in particular, Greenberg (1977), Jackson (1965), Haley (1962), Speer (1970), Hoffman (1976) and Andolfi (1979, pp. 6-9;126-129).…”

“…The explication of the concept of family homeostasis as the union of the two sets SE and TE corresponds to the most common uses of this concept in the family therapy literature. It reflects our attempt to capture the essence of relatively loose definitions of this concept, such as the following: "The family as a unit or organization has internal, ongoing, sustaining interactional processes, such that within the family unit existed a relative constancy of internal events maintained by a continuous interplay of dynamic forces"; "There exists a relatively wide, yet limited behavior range among family members ... constancy in a defined range"; "There is within the family some stability of variation in behavior"; "If family members are following organized patterns, they must be repeating certain sequences more often than others"; and "People function as governors in relation to each other by reacting to each other's behavior in error-activated ways" (from Greenberg, 1977); "Homeostatic mechanisms can be seen as behaviors which delimit the fluctuations of other behaviors along the particular range where the norm is relevant" (from Jackson, 1965); "If a system is stable, there is a governing process at work, which maintains the limits of variability of the system.... If one person goes too far in any direction and exceeds the limits of tolerance of other family members, they will respond in such a way that the extreme behavior is corrected" (Haley, 1962); etc.…”