The Family Crucible: The Intense Experience of Family Therapy

Individuation is a psychological process that occurs within an individual person throughout life and which represents their inner growth toward a distinct self that is assured, determined, and self-confident. Napier argues that individuation is a necessary process in family therapy, because learning to depend on and trust oneself is the only way that a person can healthily enter a close relationship. If a person is not individuated, they risk falling into harmful patterns of dependency with other people. In the Brice family, each member has their own process of individuation. Carolyn’s is the most pronounced, while David’s takes the longest to come to fruition due to his inner hesitation to change. Claudia also experiences the process of individuation, which gives her the strength to move away and be on her own.

A positive feedback spiral is a psychological process between two people that has its roots in the idea of the family system. Napier and Whitaker theorize the family as a system and make metaphorical comparisons to machines and other types of systems to better understand how families operate. The word “positive” in positive feedback spiral does not refer to something “good,” but rather to a change in the system and its homeostatic or normal/baseline state.