Week 3 Assignment: Understanding MFT History and Concepts Brief History of Marriage and Family Therapy Marriage and Family Therapy, particularly the family aspect, has a long history. Some of the family aspect was touched on by such leaders in the field as Freud and Rogers. The focuses for these two theorists however, were based on the impact, particularly the negatives, on the family and didn’t delve into the treatment of the family as whole. This base work however led to the questions asked by the early pioneers interested in treating the family as a whole unit. The question that really set things off was, “‘To what extent would we have to reject and/or accept prevailing theoretical concepts and techniques from individual theories to succeed (Chabot, 2011)?’” Finding the answer to that question and others had theorists split into two different groups. The first group was made up of those who focused on the more individual theories and the second group consisted of those who focused more on the systemic approach. According to Chabot (2011) those theorists and practitioners include: 1950s. Nathan Ackerman (first group) who seemed to focus his therapy theories around Freud’s psychosexual stages. He believed that to be healthy, one had to express their emotions and their anger in particular. Those involved in the Bateson Project (second group), Gregory Bateson, Jay Haley, John Weakland, and Don Jackson focused on the communication process between family members. 1960s.
The Winchester family, John (44), Mary (43), Dean (17), and Sam (15), have come to therapy to seek help for various issues. John and Mary are on the verge of divorce; Dean is skipping school, fighting, and shoplifting, and Sam has withdrawn completely from the family. The family was ordered to attend therapy after the Military Police (MPs) responded to a call from neighbors after an especially loud verbal altercation between John and Dean, in which John threatened to physically harm Dean if he did not leave the premises. John was order to move into the barracks and Mary is threatening to file for divorce.
By trying to help counsel Sujay and his parents, as a counselor, my first I would take the approach by having them clarify to each other what they anticipate from each other have them to listen, and hold their remarks until the end of each statement. Counselor will have the parents of Sujay to talk about their culture and beliefs to their son, so he can have a clear understanding of his heritage.
In the Structural Family Therapy model, therapy is not focused solely on the individual, but upon the person within the family system (Colapinto, 1982; Minuchin, 1974). The major idea behind viewing the family in this way is that “an individual’s symptoms are best understood when examined in the context of the family interactional patterns,” (Gladding, 1998, p. 210). In SFT, there are two basic assumptions: 1) families possess the skills to solve their own problems; and 2) family members usually are acting with good intentions, and as such, no
Salvador Minuchin, born and raised in Argentina, is known as the founder of structural family therapy (Colapinto, 1982). Before creating what would be known as his most lasting contribution, Minuchin spent years paving his way to his success. Traveling back and forth from Israel to the United States, Minuchin finally settled down in the year 1954 where he began training in psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute in the United States (Nichols, 2014). Following the White Institute, Minuchin began working at the Wiltwyck School, which consisted of delinquent boys from unsystematic, multi-problem, underprivileged families (Colapinto, 1982). At the time Minuchin began working there, therapists had found that certain clinical populations were not responding to traditional psychotherapy (Lappin, 1988). In fact, the population of delinquent children, like those that Minuchin was working with at Wiltwyck, resisted even more so than other populations to this traditional psychotherapy (Lappin, 1988). This was due to the fact that the traditional psychotherapeutic techniques used, were developed for middle-class patients who were verbally articulate (Colapinto, 1982). It was then when Minuchin realized that a new model of change was needed, particularly one that worked with unprivileged, delinquent boys (Lappin, 1988).
The purpose of this paper is to examine the field of marriage and family counseling beginning with the history and development of the profession and its importance in the field of counseling. This paper will also evaluate five major themes relevant to Marriage and Family Therapy which include: roles of Marriage and Family Therapists; licensure requirements and examinations; methods of supervision; client advocacy; multiculturalism and diversity. The author will discuss significant aspects to the field of Marriage and Family Therapy such as MFT identity, function, and ethics of the profession. This paper will assess biblical values in relation to Marriage and Family Therapists and to the field
Diagnose and treat mental and emotional disorders, whether cognitive, affective, or behavioral, within the context of marriage and family systems. Apply psychotherapeutic and family systems theories and techniques in the delivery of services to individuals, couples, and families for the purpose of treating such diagnosed nervous and mental disorders.(ONET)
1David C. Olsen. Integrative Family Therapy: Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series. Minneapolis: Fortress Press; 1993; page 15.
therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of
My first assumption of family therapy was to involve the parents and the individual that had the problem. This book explored further what it
A family rarely enters therapy with the clear-cut idea of where exactly it’s problem lie, and the therapist’s job during the first interview is to organize the facts and the characteristics of the family and analyze the emotional process in a way that locates the trouble spots in the relationship system. The choice of a particular method of evaluation depends on the ideology of the therapist, as well as the state of the family that enters therapy.
He recognised that these patterns could go back to generations. He observed a lack of personal autonomy within these families. During this time therapists realised that sometimes therapy would start from a child in the family but the cause of the matter will be failed relationship between parents. The behaviour of parents could be result of their own family system behavioural patterns carried thru generations. During couple’s therapy it was observed that both partners are unable to differentiate themselves from their own
In 1985 Dr. Howard Liddle developed Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) in an effort to combat adolescent substance abuse along with associated mental health and behavioral issues (Rowe, 2010). Combining multiple theoretical frameworks, such as developmental psychology, family systems theory, and the risk and protective model of adolescent substance abuse, Liddle created a multi-systems approach to focus on the adolescent as an individual, family member, and peer; the parents as individuals and their caregiving roles; the family and their interconnected relationships as well as the family environment; and extra-familial influential systems, such as school, peer networks, and the juvenile justice system (Liddle, 2010). This ecological conceptual framework allows for MDFT to delve deeper into understanding the adolescent’s intersecting environments and relationships in regard to their own development and substance abuse.
Family is something that plays a tremendous role in our life. Even though the structure of families has changed over the years, it is important to acknowledge that there many families out there whether they are traditional families, nuclear family, stepfamilies or others which tend to have different types of problems in their families. Therefore, many families attempt to go to family therapy in order for them to obtain help in solving the different types of issues they might have at home. As stated in the book Family Therapy by Michael P. Nichols (2013), “The power of family therapy derives from bringing parents and children together to transform their interaction… What keeps people stuck in their inability to see their own participation in the problems that plague them. With eyes fixed firmly on what recalcitrant others are doing, it’s hard for most people to see the patterns that bind them together. The family therapist’s job is to give them a wake-up call” (2013).
Marriage and family therapists believe that the family patterns may affect an individual’s psychological and physical well being and therefore need to be part of therapy. During a therapy session even if only one person is being interviewed, the therapists focuses on a set of relationships that the person is embedded in. The entire family is involved in solving clients problems regardless of whether the issue in individual or family.
In Marriage Counseling: A Christian Approach to Counseling Couples Everett Worthington shares that individuals achieve meaning in life through intimate relation-ships (with God and with humans) and through demonstrating to themselves that they can effect desired outcomes in work and relationships (called effectance). Intimacy and effectance are exercised most fully in marriage and family life and in life in the church body. However, intimacy and effectance are exercised in different ways at different times in the life cycle. Development theories can be described within two categories which are the Stage and Transition theories. Stage theories gives us an idea of what happens across a long period of time. Transition theories help us understand what hap-pens as we move from one stage to the next.