Virginia Satir (1916-1988) was a well-known American psychotherapist and specialist in family relations. Its methods of solving largely formed the models used in NLP.
Satir’s main ideas can be summarized in a few key points:
1. The family in which we grew up largely determines our behavior and attitudes.
2. The family is a system, and therefore it strives for a balance, to maintain which sometimes the imposition of roles on family members, a system of prohibitions or unrealistic expectations (in this case, the needs of family members come into conflict with each other and violations are provided) are used.
3. Violations in the family system give rise to low self-esteem and defensive behavior, since a person will still strive to increase self-esteem and protect it from outside attacks.
4. Each person has enough strength for personal growth and a healthy active life.
5. There are always opportunities for personal growth, but psychotherapeutic work should be carried out at the level of «processes», not «content».
6. The process of change captures the whole person and includes several successive stages.
The main task of Satir’s psychotherapy is personal growth, since she herself often repeated that every person has the potential for this growth, and psychotherapy can only stimulate it. Satyr compared a person to a seed, in the core of which lies the germ of a future plant, but for violent growth, he first needs to accumulate strength in order to be able to break through the thickets of weeds.
To get rid of the «weeds» — maladaptive beliefs and behaviors — the therapist must first of all capture the mental states of the person, and not focus on the problem declared by him. As Satir said, “The problem itself is not a problem; the problem is how one deals with it.”