Mapping the Family System: A Technique for Teaching Family Systems Theory Concepts

In contrast to many academic disciplines, family life education clearly holds both cognitive and affective goals. It aims to make students not only better informed and more analytical, but also more skilled in applying such knowledge toward the understanding and improvement of their own family relationships (Olson & Moss, 1980). The family systems approach has particular potential to help students realize this dual goal because it has been developed by both scholars and therapists. Unfortunately, textbooks on family relationships generally devote little space to discussion of theory. Family systems theory, because of its relative youth, is often completely omitted. Because of the important role family systems theory currently plays in research (e.g., Holman & Burr, 1980; Klein, Schvaneveldt & Miller, 1977) and therapy (e.g., Olson, Sprenkle, & Russell, 1979) we have adapted a family