ABSTRACT
The goal is to help people identify problematic emotional, behavioral, and cognitive sequences and replace them with more adaptive ones. When applying the process within a systemic framework, five family therapy concepts are particularly foundational: mutual behavioral reinforcement, schemas, cognitive distortion/incongruent thinking, relational patterns of thought, emotion, and behavior, and therapist as coach. This chapter illustrates how therapists can integrate principles of sociocultural attunement and a shift to third order change. Practicing socioculturally attuned Cognitive behavioral family therapy (CBFT) begins by taking stock of one’s own conceptual frameworks about reality. Even ideas integral to CBFT, such as the value of having goals or that people can and should take active steps to shape the direction of their lives, are linked to Western social schemas prizing individual autonomy and an orientation to the future. The possibility of third order change depends on seeing the systems one is embedded in and envisioning alternative options and choice.
