Author: Jennifer Benjamin

  • “Reaching Inward: A Way of Training in Human Systems Thinking,” Marion Lindblad-Goldberg

    In her 1985 article in PsycCRITIQUES, “Reaching Inward: A Way of Training in Human Systems Thinking,” Marion Lindblad-Goldberg presented a method for training people to think systemically about human behavior. The core of her work relates to family therapy and ecosystemic structural family therapy (ESFT), a model that considers how family members and their broader social context are interconnected. 

    Key concepts of the article

    • Training in systems thinking: The article discusses a training program designed to help individuals move beyond a linear, cause-and-effect understanding of behavior. Systems thinking involves seeing individuals and their actions as part of a larger, dynamic network of relationships and patterns.
    • Focus on internal context: The training emphasizes self-reflection and an examination of one’s own role within a system. This contrasts with a “system-as-effect” perspective, which blames external forces for a system’s behavior.
    • Emphasis on family systems: The article focuses on applying systems thinking to family relationships. Her later work emphasizes that a family is its own best resource for change, suggesting her training method helped therapists see the innate strengths of families.
    • A “way of being”: The training is not merely a set of tools but a fundamental shift in perception—a “way of being” that fosters curiosity, compassion, and courage.
    • Focus on relationships: The article explored how to help trainees understand the patterns of interaction and structural relationships that define human systems, rather than just focusing on individual actions. 

    The article is an early piece from Lindblad-Goldberg’s distinguished career, which heavily influenced the field of family therapy. 

    • Pioneered ecosystemic structural family therapy (ESFT): Lindblad-Goldberg is credited with developing the ESFT model, which helps therapists work with families to identify dysfunctional patterns of interaction and connect families with community resources.
    • Founding of a training center: She is currently the Director Emeritus of the Philadelphia Child and Family Therapy Training Center (PCFTTC), which trains therapists in the ESFT model.
    • Informed later publications: Her exploration of systems thinking in this 1985 article provided a foundational basis for her later books and papers, such as Creating Competence from Chaos (1998) and Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy: Theoretical and Clinical Foundations (2013). 

  • How would Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT) would use family assessment tools to understand a family when tantrums (or any dysregulated behavior) are present?

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    Tantrums signal the distress:

    • I’m overwhelmed.
    • I’m trying to tell you about a need I have.
    • I’m possibly hungry, tired, overwhelmed, lonely, or angry and I don’t know how to handle that yet.
    • I need to learn a new way to ask you for this need when I am calm.
    • I’m new at figuring out big feelings.
    • My brain can’t understand you when I’m feeling this much emotion.
    • I need you to be calm so I can figure out these feelings.
    • I don’t want to be acting this way.
    • I’m watching how you respond to my big feelings so I know how to respond next time.
    • I love you and feel safe with you.

    Understanding Tantrums Systemically

    In ESFT, a child’s tantrum is not viewed as an isolated behavioral problem, but as a signal of relational and systemic distress within the family. The therapist’s task is to uncover what the behavior is communicating about the family’s functioning, emotional regulation, and attachment patterns. To do that, ESFT clinicians rely on family assessment tools that help organize both data and hypotheses about family structure, meaning, and context.

    1. Structural Map

    A structural map helps the therapist visualize family hierarchies, subsystems, and boundaries.

    • Question: Who holds power in this system? Who regulates whom?
    • Application: A child’s tantrums may reveal an inverted hierarchy—perhaps the child has taken on a leadership or caregiving role due to weak parental alignment. The therapist uses this map to target parental leadership as a treatment goal.

    2. Genogram

    The genogram offers a multi-generational view of patterns, roles, and emotional themes.

    • Question: How has emotion been managed across generations?
    • Application: If a parent grew up in a family where emotional expression was punished, they may struggle to tolerate their child’s big feelings. This insight helps the therapist reframe the tantrum as a learned systemic response rather than defiance.

    3. Ecomap

    An ecomap situates the family within their broader social ecology—schools, community supports, stressors, and resources.

    • Question: How do external systems impact the family’s capacity to regulate and connect?
    • Application: Chronic financial stress or social isolation might amplify dysregulation. The therapist identifies potential supports and incorporates them into the treatment plan.

    4. Critical Events Timeline

    This tool tracks significant family stressors, transitions, and traumas over time.

    • Question: What events preceded the escalation of tantrums? What strengths exist to help caregivers maintain self regulation and leadership?
    • Application: If tantrums increased after a loss, move, or separation, the therapist links behavior to attachment disruptions and works to strengthen co-regulation and caregiver attunement.

    5. Negative Interactional Patterns ( NIP) & Positive Interactional Pattern (PIP)

    These patterns identify how members respond to one another based on the structural map at admissions and how the members respond when the family is unbalanced and second order change occurs.

    • Question: What is the pattern that binds the family in crisis? What is the pattern that frees the family from crisis?
    • Application: A tantrum might trigger parental withdrawal, reinforcing the child’s fear of disconnection. The therapist works to interrupt this sequence through enactments that promote repair and attachment, alliances, co parenting, parental leadership and co-regulation.

    In Summary

    Using these tools, the ESFT therapist doesn’t just describe a child’s tantrum—they contextualize it. The behavior becomes a portal into understanding family structure, attachment, and emotional organization. The treatment goal shifts from stopping the tantrum to restoring relational balance so the family can regulate together.

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  • Win Access to the Homestudy of your Choice!

    #ecomap #esft #wickedcool

    YOU MUST BE SUBSCRIBED TO THE BLOG FOR YOUR ENTRY TO COUNT

    Enter the family assessment tool competition to win free access to one HOMESTUDY CE PROGRAM from the PCFTTC store (APA or ACE category).

    Using the movies Wicket Part 1 and Part 2 (or the Broadway production), and Elphaba as the identified patient complete at least two family assessment tools from this list:

    1. Structural map with identified family type
    2. Negative Interactional Pattern with at least three people in the pattern.
    3. Ecomap
    4. Genogram
    5. Critical Events Timeline

    Entries can use their imagination to fill in the gaps of information not provided during the films. The most creative information and with the most assessment tools accuracy wins!

    Entries are accepted until 11:59am on December 19th. Entries should be electronically submitted to training@pcfttc.com .

    Check out last years winner on youtube.com, using Kevin McCallister from Home Alone 1 and 2:

  • From “What’s Wrong With You?” to “What Happened to You?” — The Shift That Changes Everything

    #esft #systemicthinker

    For generations, helping professionals, educators, and even family members have been trained to ask, “What’s wrong with you?” when someone behaves in ways that seem confusing, defiant, or self-destructive. It’s a question rooted in problem identification, but it often carries an unintended message—that something inside the person is broken, defective, or in need of fixing. In Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT), we take a different approach. We ask, “What happened to you?”

    This question changes the entire frame of understanding. Instead of pathologizing behavior, it invites curiosity, compassion, and context. It shifts our focus from the individual as the source of dysfunction to the system—the web of relationships, environments, and experiences that have shaped the person’s current way of coping.

    When we ask, “What happened to you?”, we are not excusing behavior; we are explaining it. We begin to see behavior as communication, not simply as a symptom to be eliminated. A child’s aggression, withdrawal, or defiance may no longer appear as “bad behavior,” but as an adaptive response to chronic stress, trauma, or unmet emotional needs.

    This reframing is also healing for caregivers. Parents often feel blamed or powerless when a child struggles. But when professionals help them see the child’s behavior in context—through the lens of what happened—they can respond with empathy and leadership instead of frustration and guilt. This approach restores the caregiver’s confidence and invites them into collaboration, rather than correction.

    From a clinical perspective, “what happened to you” thinking leads to interventions that are relational, not punitive. It allows for joining, reframing, enactment, and anchoring—the hallmarks of ESFT—to take root in a way that promotes lasting change.

    Ultimately, asking “What happened to you?” honors the truth that all behavior makes sense in context. It opens the door to healing by helping individuals and families see themselves not as problems to be fixed, but as systems capable of resilience, repair, and growth.

    When we lead with curiosity instead of judgment, we don’t just change our questions—we change lives.

    Checkout the HOMESTUDY: Really Being Strength Based in Treatment: “Every Family is their Own Best Resource for Change” in our store to start learning how to shift change in the system.

  • Joining Across Power: Lessons from Dr. Kenneth Hardy on Privilege, Subjugation, and Systemic Joining

    #joning #kenhardy #systemicthinking #powerandprivilege

    Dr. Kenneth Hardy’s work offers a profound framework for understanding power, privilege, and oppression within therapeutic relationships and broader social systems. His concepts of the tasks of the privileged and the tasks of the subjugated challenge therapists to examine not only the dynamics within the families they serve, but also the relational forces that exist between therapist and client.

    Hardy (2016) explains that privilege and subjugation are relational positions, not fixed identities—both shaped by historical, social, and cultural contexts. Those in positions of privilege have the task of acknowledging, naming, and owning their privilege. This includes developing an awareness of how their position influences interactions, interpretations, and access to resources. Privileged individuals must resist the temptation to minimize or universalize experiences of marginalization and instead cultivate curiosity and humility.

    Conversely, the tasks of the subjugated involve reclaiming voice, validating lived experience, and challenging the internalized messages that come from systemic oppression. These tasks are not the responsibility of the oppressed alone, but require environments where it is safe to speak truth and be believed.

    In Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT), joining—the process of authentically entering a family’s world—is at the heart of systemic change. Hardy’s framework deepens our understanding of joining by reminding us that power differentials always exist in the therapy room. Therapists, whether aware or not, bring their own privilege into the system—through education, race, class, professional role, or authority. When privilege goes unacknowledged, it can replicate the very hierarchies that perpetuate distress within families.

    To join effectively, therapists must intentionally decenter themselves and cultivate empathy through curiosity and transparency. They must ask: “What might it be like for this family to be joined by someone in my position?” and “How might my privilege or my own subjugated experiences be shaping how I join?”

    By integrating Hardy’s lens, joining becomes not just a clinical technique, but an act of social justice—a way of restoring balance in relationships fractured by inequity. True joining honors both voices: the courage of the subjugated to speak and the humility of the privileged to listen.

    Reference:
    Hardy, K. V. (2016). The View from Black America: Reflections on My Work and Journey. In D. Combs et al. (Eds.), Family Therapy Review: Contrasting Contemporary Models. Routledge.

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  • Lessons from Superman – Part 4

    #superman #ESFT #systemicfamilytherapy

    “Every voice matters. Even the quietest one can change the whole story.”

    Systemic family therapy is built on the belief that families are ecosystems, and in ecosystems, every part plays a role. Yet in many families, certain voices—children, quieter siblings, caregivers, and even natural supports—can get lost in the noise. When that happens, the system adapts in ways that often reinforce imbalance and distress. This results in dislocation.

    Therapists

    As systemic family therapists, our responsibility is to ensure that every voice is heard. This may mean slowing down to notice the child who rarely speaks, or asking a question that allows a caregiver to share their untold story. It may mean restructuring a session so the quieter members are elevated, reminding the family that healing comes from inclusion, not exclusion. Or, it may mean calling attention to the impact of a family member is still having on how people relate, even if they are gone or deceased.

    Supervisors

    Supervisors can carry this forward by how they engage supervisees. When early-career clinicians hesitate to speak up, supervisors can invite their perspectives and validate their observations. Often, those voices carry insights others have overlooked. This can be used as part of the prepared plan for what will happen in the next session. Or, maybe the supervisors connects the insights to the family assessment tools.

    Summary

    Families change when silenced voices are given space. Teams strengthen when quieter members are encouraged to lead. In systemic practice, the smallest shift—one voice being heard—can transform the whole story. In honoring every voice, we honor the heart of systemic therapy: belonging, connection, and the belief that everyone has a role in shaping the system’s future.

    Check our CE program Store to learn more about systemic family therapy and ecosystemic structural family therapy.

    To learn about our Certification Programs click here.

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  • Equifinality & Equipotentiality

    #esft #systemicfamilytherapist #familyresiliency

    Two Systemic Truths Every Family Therapist Should Know

    In Ecosystemic Structural Family Therapy (ESFT), we understand that human behavior doesn’t occur in isolation—it’s shaped by a complex network of relationships, histories, and environments. Two foundational ideas that help us make sense of this complexity are equifinality and equipotentiality. These concepts remind us that there is never just one path to a problem—or to healing.

    Equifinality: Many Roads, One Destination

    Definition: Different starting points can lead to the same outcome.

    In practice, this means that families with very different structures, histories, or stressors can arrive at similar patterns of functioning or symptoms.

    For example, one child’s depression might emerge from a divorce, another’s from high parental conflict, and a third’s from overprotection. Though their paths differ, the presenting concern—emotional withdrawal—looks similar.

    For the ESFT clinician, equifinality invites curiosity. Rather than assuming causality, we look systemically: What relational patterns have formed around this symptom? What role does it serve in maintaining family balance? Understanding these dynamics helps therapists move from surface behaviors to deeper systemic change.

    Equipotentiality: One Road, Many Possible Destinations

    Definition: The same starting point can lead to different outcomes.

    This concept highlights the variability of human resilience. Two siblings may grow up in the same family and experience the same parental conflict, yet one develops anxiety while the other becomes highly independent.

    For the ESFT therapist, this principle emphasizes context and meaning.

    Families are not defined by what happens to them, but by how they organize around it.

    Equipotentiality reminds us that every experience holds multiple possible outcomes—and that therapy can influence which path unfolds.

    Why These Concepts Matter in ESFT

    Both principles underscore a central truth: change in families is dynamic, relational, and contextual.
    Equifinality encourages therapists to avoid simplistic explanations, while equipotentiality keeps hope alive—even in challenging cases. Together, they form the foundation of systemic thinking: honoring diversity, complexity, and the endless potential for transformation within every family system.

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