Skip to main content

Semantic Polarities in CFT

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy
  • 97 Accesses

Introduction

The theory of family semantic polarities (FSPT) offers a systemic-constructionist perspective on personality and its psychopathological developments focused on semantics.

Developed by Valeria Ugazio (1998, 2013), the theory gives a fundamental role to processes of meaning making in couples and families. It is meanings, the emotions feeding them, and the positions they create that offer important keys in understanding the dynamics of couples and families and the processes that lead to problems and mental disorders. Meanings form the therapeutic relation as well and, according to the FSPT, play a central role in therapeutic change.

Theoretical Context

Grounded in the practice of family therapy and the Milan approach and developed in the dialogue with those psychotherapists who place the question of meaning at the center of their work (Kelly, Guidano, Neimeyer, Procter, etc.), the FSPT has the positioning theory (Harré, van Lagenhove, etc.) as one of its principal points of...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Campbell, D., & Grønbaek, M. (2006). Taking positions in the organization. London: Karnac Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Castiglioni, M., Faccio, E., Veronese, G., & Bell, C. R. (2013). The semantics of power among people with eating disorders. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 26, 62–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2013.740263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faccio, E., Belloni, E., Cipolletta, S., Iudici, A., Castiglioni, M., & Mannarini, S. (2016). The power of weight and the weight of power in adolescence: A comparison between young and adult women. Journal of Family Studies, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2016.1187660.

  • Parks, T. (2015). The novel a survival skill. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V. (1998). Storie permesse, storie proibite: Polarità semantiche familiari e psicopatologie [Permitted and forbidden stories: Family semantic polarities and psychopathologies]. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V. (2010). Los trastornos de la conducta alimentaria: cuando el rechazo a la jerarquia se vuelve derrumbamiento de las diferencias. Mosaic, 44, 25–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V. (2013). Semantic polarities and psychopathologies in the family: Permitted and forbidden stories (trans: Dixon, R.). New York: Routledge. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6427.12023.

  • Ugazio, V. (2016). Family semantic polarities as a guide for the therapeutic process. In I. McCarthy & S. Gail (Eds.), Systemic therapy as transformative practice (pp. 368–391). Farnhill: Everything is Connected Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V., & Castelli, D. (2015). The semantics grid of the dyadic therapeutic relationship (SG-DTR). TPM – Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 22, 135–159. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM22.1.8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V., & Fellin, L. (2016). Family semantic polarities and positionings. A semantic analysis. In M. Borcsa & P. Rober (Eds.), Research perspectives in couple therapy: Discursive qualitative methods (pp. 125–148). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23306-2_9.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V., & Guarnieri, S. (2017). The family semantics grid II. Narrated polarities in couples. TPM – Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 24, 215–253. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM24.2.4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V., Negri, A., Fellin, L., & Di Pasquale, R. (2009). The family semantics grid (FSG). The narrated polarities. TPM – Testing, Psychometrics, Methodology in Applied Psychology, 16, 165–192. https://doi.org/10.4473/TPM.16.4.1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugazio, V., Negri, A., & Fellin, L. (2015). Freedom, goodness, power and belonging: The semantics of phobic, obsessive- compulsive, eating, and mood disorders. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 28, 293–315. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2014.951109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Valeria Ugazio .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Ugazio, V. (2018). Semantic Polarities in CFT. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_952-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_952-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-15877-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics