Virginia Satir Related Books
Beyond Blaming – Congruence in Large Systems Development Projects, Jean McLendon and Jerry Weinberg – an excellent article for applying Satir concepts within large projects. My favorite line from this article: ‘Congruence is contagious’.
The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond, by Virginia Satir, John Banmen, Jane Gerber, Maria Gomori – A comprehensive book outlining her lifework in terms of common models and practices that Virginia Satir pioneered in her approach to Family Therapy. These include as Congruence, Coping Stances, Survival Rules, Ingredients of Interactions, The Process of Change, the Parts Party, Self-Esteem Toolkits, Transforming Rules, Temperature Reading, and more. Best to combine this book with other works that outline example transcripts from sessions she conducted to see how she put it into practice.
Making Contact, Virginia Satir — an incredibly beautifully written short primer on the basic building blocks of Virginia’s philosophy and practices to help two humans interact. You’ll take away many quick and easy tips to improve your communication: salient practices from her 50+ years of family counseling experience. A beautiful introduction with hand drawings.
Your Many Faces, Virginia Satir — In this book Virigina shows you how to invite all your parts to join in a party and to practice taking the spotlight on stage. Parts for Virginia – are all the resources you have – virtues and vices – all your internal voices. This method a very simple way to teach you how to become more self-aware and accepting of yourself. Its ok to welcome the internal chatter; each time we do that there the voice is there for some reason to protect us. But when we can see the negative voices for what they are as protectors, we can praise them and ask them to now take back stage so we can move on with what we really want.
Satir Family Therapy in Action, Maria Gomori – Maria Gomori discovered Virginia Satir’s work in her 50’s and now 45 years later is still active in the international Satir therapeuitc community. The first few chapters cover her recollections of Virginia and their work together. The rest of the book is devoted to transcripts from a series of extended sessions held in Shanghai in 2013 with Chinese families. This was of particular interest to me, since I had an intercultural marriage. I wanted to see how, if at all, the issues facing Chinese families differ or are similar with those in the US.
Meditations of Virginia Satir
Such a lovely book of short poems and meditations to increase self awareness and sels-esteem. It can be digested in very very short contemplative moments, or when needing inspiration and confirmation. Just shy of 100 pages, this is one of my favorite books of Virginia Satir’s.
Connections and Congruence 
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