Creating a ‘social zeitgeber’ to synchronize family emotional rhythms: A new therapeutic approach in child and adolescent psychiatry

Publication date: Available online 16 August 2017 Source:Journal of Physiology-Paris Author(s): Matthias Wiss, Sylvie Tordjman A family can be viewed as a system respecting the principle of homeostasis and therefore considered as a system in equilibrium or out of equilibrium, or even both simultaneously or consecutively. Within a family system, there are oscillatory phenomena and synchronization of the emotional, behavioral and relational rhythms of each member of the family system as well as synchronization of this system with others. A disruption of family synchronies, consisting of successive desynchronizations and resynchronizations, can take place in order for a change to occur. We created a mobile team for preadolescents and adolescents with psychological difficulties and their families; this mobile team enables to trigger a change by acting on the family synchronies like a ‘social zeitgeber’, i.e. an external factor synchronizing social and biological rhythms. The mobile team acts by disrupting the synchronies of the family system and this disruption is facilitated by a state of crisis experienced by the family. More specifically, the mobile team intervention provokes changes in the family representations associated with changes in the family emotional climate, measured by expressed emotion, due to disruptions in the synchronization of certain rhythms (desynchronization and then resynchronization of these rhythms), and could therefore be considered as a ‘soci...
Source: Journal of Physiology Paris - Category: Physiology Source Type: research