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Biomedical subjects

F B Simon

Publications and source records attributed to F B Simon.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Beyond bipolar thinking: patterns of conflict as a focus for diagnosis and intervention.

Most family typologies in the history of family therapy organized the observation according to bipolar scales. The implied assumption of such models is that the attribution of the one observational characteristic is inevitably bound to the negation of its opposite characteristic. This article presents a formal observational schema that has the possibility to grasp contradictory, conflicting characteristics. Using this schema, one can develop a clinically relevant family typology, making distinctions between different patterns of interaction by which conflicts and antagonistic tendencies in families are organized. Clinical observation and experience suggests that one can distinguish families with members with psychosomatic, manic-depressive, and schizophrenic symptoms by the way they overcome conflicts and ambivalence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

[Form of the psyche. Psychoanalysis and recent systems theory].

Modern systems theory is not concerned with objects but with the form of processes and structures. It is thus equipped to provide a unified theoretical framework for those varieties of phenomena that psychoanalysis has to deal with. The author discusses recent systems theory models and demonstrates the critique of epistemology that they by their nature imply. These models proceed from the process of observation and show that in the interaction between observers--say, analyst and analysand--observing each other observe, observation may either change or stabilise what is being observed. This is not without consequence for the way psychoanalysis envisions its own identity. Psychoanalysis can no longer naively apply "knowledge" in the traditional sense but must always be aware of the self-reflective nature of that knowledge. Its "application" is thus invariably a form of social intervention.

Humans↗
PubMed1991

A followup study of manic-depressive and schizoaffective psychoses after systemic family therapy.

The authors report the results of a followup study of manic-depressive and schizoaffective psychoses after systemic family therapy. They describe the development of inpatient relapse rates, familial interactional patterns, and prescriptions of medication in a sample of 30 cases treated with family therapy and followed up after a mean interval of 3 years. Finally, they assess the effectiveness of systemic family therapy with manic-depressive and schizoaffective psychoses.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Therapy for families manifesting manic-depressive behavior.

This is a companion piece to the article "Some Features of Families with Major Affective Disorders," published in Family Process (25: 325-336, 1986). In addition to the family features mentioned in the first article, the authors report on other features that have come to the fore since then. Subsequently, they deal with the therapeutic problems that derive from all of these features. In particular, they elaborate on how the therapists must (and can) maintain their neutrality in the face of the massive polarizations and extremes of the either/or thinking found in these families. There follows a description of typical phases in the therapeutic process. Finally, therapy with one family is described in detail.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Features of families with major affective disorders.

This article reports the authors' observations on 22 families in which a young adult member has been diagnosed as manic-depressive, and on 11 families in which a member has been diagnosed as suffering from major schizoaffective disorder. All families could be described as extremely rigid and bound-up systems. Many of them were characterized by a "restrictive parental complementarity" and reciprocal delegation, and they shared certain cognitive features and assumptions. "Manic-depressive" families showed similarities as well as differences when compared with families in which there were schizophrenic and serious psychosomatic disorders.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1980

[The "Power of Being Powerless" -communication theory comments on the "Emancipative" therapy (author's transl)].

Every patient is in a state of dependence in relation to his therapist, since the therapist's position is institutionally predetermined in his capacity as a person who assesses, evaluates, classifies and causes a kind of judgment on the patient's doings. If a therapist aims at encouraging his patient to become emancipated, he runs the risk of placing himself and his patient in a paradoxical position by demanding that his patient should be independent of him. This command could be obeyed by the patient only by not obeying it - and vice versa. This dilemma can be solved only if the therapist renounces part of his power and thus gives that patient enough free play for self-determination. Hence, the power of the therapist to achieve his original goal, namely, the emancipation of his patient, lies in his powerlessness.

Communication↗
PubMed1980

["Family therapy"--basis of "social psychiatry" (author's transl)].

"Family Therapy" should be preferably interpreted as a certain "mode of thinking" rather than as a specific "technique". It offers a framework which represents an aid to orientation, enabling the therapist to deduce instructions for appropriate action in almost all fields of psychiaric workaday routine or to deliberate on the "sense" of "nonsense" of therapeutic interventions. Sociopsychiatry which wishes to avoid the atrophy resulting from "blind activism", will have to adopt a line of thought represented by the "family therapy approach".

Family Therapy↗