MAFT 6010 Reaction Paper #1
Melanie J. Prud’homme
University of Louisiana at Monroe

MAFT 6010 Reaction Paper #1 Before starting the program, many of my friends that have graduated from the program warned me to be prepared to learn a new way of thinking. For the whole entire summer I brushed it off thinking it wouldn’t be that much of a change. But as I started the program and even this class I noticed that it was true, my way of thinking would change. Often time people never realize how hard it is to grasp a new concept after living your whole life thinking one way, but before I start on that I will describe so far some of my favorite things I have learned while in this course. First thing before I started this program I was aware of what systemic integration was but never really grasp the concept of it, but being in this course I learned that systems theory directs our mindsets, that are so used to us thinking individual and individual problems, to thinking that toward relationships and relationship issues between individual. The biggest stir that I have noticed to change my thought process is the asking of what instead of why. In systems theory we are taught to ask “what is happening?” instead of “why it is happening?” One thing that I love about systems theory is that even though it is not individual based it does not take us away from that thinking all together. Instead we can use the one that best fits for the situation. The book describes like two pies on a restaurant and the one that is selected because it complements the meal rather than because it is good and the other is bad.
Being that I graduated with my masters in Criminal Justice before starting this program I was aware of the term cybernetics, but it wasn’t until further reading in this class until I grasped what I was actually learning. I am still not aware of how it works fully but Rome wasn’t built in a day either. According to the text cybernetics means to describe by the choice of his term that of a feedback mechanism, which is especially well represented by the steering engine of a ship. One of my favorite things that I have learned that a lot of the studies early on were done with schizophrenic patients and their families. I find that really interesting but hard to grasp at first, because I always thought that schizophrenic was a chemical in balance in the brain but I never really thought that it could have something to do with the family unit as whole and how they interacted with each other. It wasn’t until the teacher described if a schizophrenic patient could see a therapist individually the behavior would seem bizarre but it wasn’t until you brought the family into therapy and see how the family interacted where you can see start see where the behavior could be somewhat justifiable. Also while reading one of my favorites leaders in the field was John Elderkin Bell. The reason being is that how he stumbled in idea of bringing the whole family into a therapy session. This is my favorite because he thought he received the idea from a therapist in London named Dr. John Bowlby, who he thought had started seeing the whole family in a session all together. But in actuality he was seeing the whole family on a individual basis.