Virginia Satir was a 20th-century American psychotherapist who radically changed the field of family therapyIn a difficult and changing time, she fought to make everyone's lives easier, perhaps because her life thrived on hardship.
Born at the beginning of the 20th century, she suffered appendicitis at just a few years old, which nearly cut short her destiny. The woman who would later become a renowned scientist in the field of psychological therapy came close to death when her mother, a deeply Christian, refused to take her to a doctor.
It was her father who made the decision to take her to the hospital, but the deplorable state of her appendix meant that Satir had to spend months in hospital, surrounded by doctors who looked after her health.
Gifted with an innate curiosity, she taught herself to read when she was just three years old. Once back in the real world decided to become a kind of family detectivea fact that would mark her life and the direction of her professional career. Satir used to explain, as an adult, that «I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but I realized that many things happened in families that were impossible to detect at first glance.«.
I realized that many things happened in families that were impossible to detect at first glance.
However, not everything about her family life was bad: her mother insisted on finding a future for Satir away from their farm in Wisconsin. They ended up in Mikwaukee, where Virginia was able to attend high school under the shadow of the dark 1930s. The Great Depression did not make things easy for her, but she managed to get by while She works part-time, babysits and tries to finish her studies as soon as possible. After finishing high school, she enrolled at the University of Milwaukee and by 1936 she was already teaching at a public school.
Virginia Satir's beginnings in psychological therapy
It was in the 1950s when Virginia Satir began her adventures in therapy. From the beginning she was interested in the family therapywhich addresses problems related to psychology from a systemic perspective, that is, as a product of the relationships established with others and, in this case, with the family.
Soon joined the Illinois Psychiatric Institutewhere he passed on his interest in family to his colleagues, but he soon moved to California, where In the late 1950s he co-founded the Mental Research Institutein Palo Alto, a long-time leader in family therapy.
His interest in family therapy stemmed from something that often happened to him in therapy: individuals who came to his consultation seemed to improve in his sessions, but, Upon returning from spending time with their family, they relapsed into their problems..
From this, Virginia Satir intuited that the problems of her patients also influenced the family, at the same time that The family influenced the problems of their patientsThat is why, by attending therapy together, it was easier to solve individual problems, since the relational problems that had caused them were also solved.
Virginia Satir's Family Therapy
Virginia Satir believed that patients never came to a doctor's office to deal with the problem that was really keeping them stuck in their discomfort. They preferred to talk about superficial problems. The presence of the family helped to find the root of the problemthrough interactions between members, and also to gather new perspectives on what was happening.
One of his most popular books was titled, precisely, «Family therapy step by step»In the synopsis, Satir assures that «the salvation of the world is found in the salvation of the family.» In this volume, Satir delved into the problems affecting families and then outlined how to solve them through communication.
«Problems are not the problem; facing them is the problem»he used to say. To help families cope with problems, Satir relied on five principles:
- Experiential methodology, understood as the formula that makes patients learn from your past experiencesVirginia Satir considered it vitally important that family members were aware of the important moments they had gone through, because it was in these experiences that the basis of the problem was often found.
- Systemic character: As we have already explained, Satir understood that Personal problems arose from interaction with others of family members.
- Positive directionality: It consists of helping patients have a positive world view around them, so that they could get the most out of themselves. Their mission was to make them understand each experience as a positive gain.
- Focus on changesince the objective of the therapy was to achieve a transformation both on a personal and family level.
- Therapist self-congruence: Only a self-aware person, who acts based on what he or she needs, will be able to help his or her patients to be congruent.
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Virginia Satir's change process model
Virginia Satir's career is inevitably intertwined with the humanistic psychologyfrom which her theories drew. It is therefore not surprising that Satir was firmly convinced that each and every person takes part, not only in the building your own lifebut also in the lives of others. In this way, each person chooses his or her own path, influenced by and influencing others. And, on this path that leads to one's own destiny, changes play a transcendental role.
The salvation of the world is found in the salvation of the family.
With her model of the change process, Virginia Satir explained the parts of the change process in order to help her patients understand the way in which they created their own lives. With this, Satir intended to get family members to face changes by being fully aware of the decisions they were making.
The stages of change process by Virginia Satir
- Every change arises from a situation of Status quowhich according to the RAE is the «state of things at a given time.» That is, the status quo It is the way you live before a change, a place where you feel safe and comfortable, a situation you have become accustomed to.
- That's when it comes an unexpected event that, whether good or bad, changes the way you used to live, turning everything upside down…
- …and provoking the chaoswhich makes you feel uncomfortable, insecure, scared and out of place. Chaotic situations often cause bad moods and even problems such as stress or insomnia. When faced with chaos, many people choose to act as if nothing had happened and try to hide it. However, it is not a good place to stay and, sooner or later, you will feel the need to get out of there. The logical thing, then, is to start looking for a way out of there.
- Return to the status quo This will probably be your first impulse when you find yourself in the middle of chaos. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, right? It makes sense, you were comfortable there, wrapped up in your routine. However, it's no longer such a safe place.
- That's why it's common for another one to arrive. unexpected event and then…
- Again the chaos. And Virginia Satir claimed that this new stage of chaos was often more difficult to bear than the previous one. However, she urged her patients to become aware of what was happening. How had they gotten there? How could they get out? Only by making conscious decisions could they escape.
- Satir observed that after this second stage of chaos, people often returned to a state similar to that Status quoregardless of the fact that that decision had already failed them before.
- As expected, then another one comes along unexpected event.
- And, in the middle of the chaospeople began to realize that returning to the status quo no longer seemed like such a good idea. So they decided to take another path, a better one. But Virginia Satir used to recommend that they not rush into a decision until they had at least three options. Only then would it be a sufficiently thoughtful and conscious decision.
- That's when it comes the idea of undergoing a change, in the certainty that the status quo is no longer a safe place.
- This change can lead to a little chaos that, thanks to what you have learned during the previous stages of chaos, you will be able to solve.
- Then you will come to a new status quobetter than the previous one.
Explaining this process, Virginia Satir tried to get people to be aware of their own decisions and I tried to make them understand that humans are constantly changing. People constantly move either towards a process of conservation or towards a process of progress. Neither of these directions is worse than the other, as long as they are taken consciously.
The objectives of Virginia Satir's change process were:
- Increase self-esteem of his patients by making them aware of their abilities and their decisions, in short, of the power they had to decide about their own lives.
- Encourage decision making so that they would feel free and self-sufficient.
- Promote the responsibility towards oneself and towards others through awareness.
- Help your patients to be consistent with what they wanted, acting on it.
«Life is not what it is supposed to be. It is what it is.«. It's how you deal with it that makes the difference,» said Virginia Satir, who was not content with helping hundreds of families to face problems and emerge stronger from them throughout her professional career. She died in the late 1980s, but she left the world her discoveries and her teachings, which would continue to improve the quality of life of people long after her death.
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