Virginia Satir (1916-1988): Who they are and their contribution

Virginia Satir (1916-1988) was an American author, social worker, and psychotherapist widely known as the "mother of family therapy." She pioneered the idea that the family functions as a system, and that a person’s struggles are best understood, and treated, in the context of the relationships around them. Her approach, now known as the Satir Growth Model or Satir Transformational Systemic Therapy, placed self-worth and honest communication at the center of change, and it continues to shape family therapy practice and training today.

Professional Life

Virginia Satir was born in Neillsville, Wisconsin, on June 26, 1916. A bright child with an explosive sense of curiosity, she taught herself how to read at the age of three and recalled wanting to become a detective when she was very young. This early interest in uncovering the truth became a lifelong passion through her therapeutic practice.

Satir attended the Milwaukee State Teachers College, now the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in education in 1936. She worked as a teacher for six years and continued her studies as a graduate student by taking classes in the summers at Northwestern University in Chicago, beginning in 1937. Eventually, she returned to school full-time at the University of Chicago School of Social Services Administration.

After completing her thesis and receiving her master’s degree in 1948, Satir immediately began a private practice, and within a few years, she was offered a position with the Illinois Psychiatric Institute. While there, she worked with other therapists to teach them the importance of addressing the whole family during treatment, not just the individual client. She recognized that the problems of an individual extend to the family and often stem from the family.

In 1959, after relocating to California, Satir helped to establish the Mental Research Institute. Through the organization, Satir and her staff developed the first training series designed specifically to teach family therapy techniques. She became the training director and used her years of expertise to coordinate and deliver the program to clinicians throughout the country. She also led the training program at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Satir devoted much of her career to helping people find the necessary mental health resources for their needs. In 1970, Satir founded the International Human Learning Resources Network, and in 1977, she created the Avanta Network. Both were intended to provide resources and support to mental health workers. Throughout her career, Satir provided hundreds of workshops and trainings in her family therapy methods, and she worked as a social worker and therapist.

Satir continued teaching and leading workshops internationally until her death in Palo Alto, California, on September 10, 1988. The Virginia Satir Global Network, founded as the Avanta Network, continues to train practitioners in her methods.

Contribution to Psychology

Satir approached therapy from a new perspective. She believed that a client's present issue was rarely the real problem and that superficial issues frequently served to mask deeper ones. She argued that mental health problems were often the product of negative family experiences and roles and placed a strong emphasis on treating the entire family rather than pathologizing the individual. Satir’s Transformational Systemic Therapy, also known as the Satir Growth Model, emphasizes engaging the inner self, and analyzing a person’s situation and choices.

Satir observed that under stress, people tend to fall into predictable communication patterns that protect self-esteem but block honest connection. She described four of these survival stances, along with a fifth, healthier alternative:

• Placating: agreeing and apologizing to keep the peace, at the cost of one’s own needs.
• Blaming: criticizing or finding fault in others as a way to stay in control.
• Super-reasonable: retreating into logic and detachment, avoiding feeling altogether.
• Irrelevant: distracting, joking, or changing the subject to sidestep the tension.
• Congruent: speaking and behaving in a way that matches what one actually feels, the stance Satir considered healthy and the goal of therapy.

To make these patterns visible, Satir developed family sculpting, in which family members physically arrange themselves in postures and positions that represent their relationships to one another. Seeing the dynamic rather than only discussing it often allowed families to recognize patterns they had never been able to put into words. Both the stances and the sculpting technique remain widely taught in family therapy training today.

Her 1964 book, Conjoint Family Therapy, emphasized the importance of individual self-worth and was based on the courses she delivered at the Mental Research Institute. After she published her book, Satir gained recognition for her theories and her popularity grew. She was in demand throughout the world and she received recognition for her achievements from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the Academy of Certified Social Workers.

In her practice, Satir tried to help people to accept life as it is and to reach peace of mind. She encouraged clients to meditate, use breathwork, and visualize positive results. She also suggested using affirmations to boost self-esteem.

Satir’s influence reaches across many branches of modern psychotherapy. Her systemic view of the family shaped experiential family therapy and later approaches including family constellations, and her focus on self-worth as the engine of change anticipated much of what humanistic and strengths-based therapy now takes for granted. She was named one of the most influential therapists of the twentieth century by her peers, and her books, particularly Conjoint Family Therapy and The New Peoplemaking, remain standard reading in family therapy training programs.

Books by Virginia Satir

• Peoplemaking (1972/1990)
• Making Contact (1976)
• Changing with Families: A Book about further Education for Being Human (with R. Bandler & J. Grinder, 1976)
• Your Many Faces (1978)
• Conjoint Family Therapy (1964)
• Satir Step by Step: A Guide to Creating Change in Families (with M. Baldwin, 1983)
• The New Peoplemaking (1988)
• The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond (with M. Gomori, J. Banmen, & J. Gerber, 1991)
• Helping Families to Change (with J. Stachowiak & H. Taschman, 1994)

References:

1. Stein, G. (1988, Sep 12). Virginia M. Satir, 72; family therapy pioneer. Los Angeles Times (Pre-1997 Fulltext). Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/280593414?accountid=1229
2. Virginia (Mildred) Satir. (1998). Contemporary Authors Online. Retrieved from http://www.gale.cengage.com/InContext/bio.htm.
3. Who Virginia was and why she mattered. (n.d.). The Virginia Satir Global Network. Retrieved from http://satirglobal.org/about-virginia-satir/