NUMBER 10 • 26 APRIL 2002 • FOUR FACTORS WHICH TROUBLE FAMILIES
INDEX OF QUOTES

	Virginia Satir says that in her work as a family therapist, there are four aspects of family life which keep cropping up insistently in the troubled families who come to her for help. These are in the areas of — the feelings and ideas the person has about himself (self-worth); the ways people work out to make meaning with one another (communication); the third area was that of rules — that it is the rules they use for how they should feel and act and which develop into a family system; and fourth, what she refers to as the link with society — the ways in which people relate to other people and the institutions outside the family. No matter what problems first led a family to her she claims that she always found the prescription to be the same: to relieve the family pain, some way had to be found to change these four key factors. Where self-worth was low it needed to be high; where communication was bad it would be indirect, vague and not really open and honest and it must be helped to be clear, specific, direct and honest; rules were found to be rigid, inhuman, non-negotiable and everlasting, and needed to become flexible, human, appropriate and open to change. And lastly, where it was discovered that the families* links to society were fearful, placatory and blaming, those links needed to be converted into openness and to be hopeful.
	— DUNCAN DAVIDSON Davidson, D. (1980).  The Child Care Worker: Needs and Skills. The Community’s Children in Care: Report of the Second Biennial Conference of the National Association of Child Care Workers. Cape Town: NACCW, pp.26–27