Counseling Plan for a Dysfunctional Family Essay

The family system is founded on the notions that for change to occur in the life of an individual, the therapist must understand and work with the family as a whole. In working with the family, the therapist can understand how the individual in counseling functions within his family system and how the client’s behaviors connect to other people in the family. This theory also holds the perception that symptoms are a set of family habits and patterns passed down by generation and not a result of a psychological problem or an inability to change (Corey, 2017). Furthermore, the family system theory holds the idea that when a change occurs everyone in the unit is affected by the change.

For this assignment, two different theoretical approaches will be discussed, Bowenian family therapy and structural family therapy, and they will be used individually to construct a treatment plan to help clients reach their goals. Within each treatment plan discussed, short-term and long-term goals of therapy will be established and the family’s presenting problems will be defined. Two techniques that will be assigned to help them reach their therapeutic goals and any expected outcome from using those techniques will be discussed.

However, with her alcoholic dad who rarely kept a job and her mother who suffered mood swings, they had to find food from her school garbage or eat expired food they had previously when they had the slightest bit of money. In addition, when bills and mortgage piled up, they would pack their bags and look for a new home to live in, if they could even call it a stable home, since they would be on the move so often. Jeanette needed a dad who wouldn’t disappear for days at a time, and a mom that was emotionally stable, but because she didn’t have that, she grew up in an environment where she would get teased or harassed for it. Jeanette suffered so much, that even at one point, she tried convincing her mother to leave her father because of the trouble he had caused the family already. A child should be able to depend on their parents for food and to be there for them when they need it, and when that part of a child’s security is taken away, it leaves them lost and on their own, free and confused about what to do next.

Everyone wants a perfect family, but nothing is ever perfect. The family in “Why I Live at the P.O.” is most definitely less than perfect. When Stella-Rondo returns to her old home after leaving her husband and bringing her small child who she claims is adopted, much conflict in the family increases. Stella-Rondo turns every family member living in the household against Sister, her older sister, and every family member betrays Sister by believing the lies Stella-Rondo tells about Sister to them. Through much turmoil and distress, Sister becomes so overwhelmed with the unending conflict that she feels she must leave her home and live at the post office. In “Why I Live at the P.O.,” Eudora Welty strongly implies that the function of the

My first assumption of family therapy was to involve the parents and the individual that had the problem. This book explored further what it

By integrating CBT and family systems theories the individual and the family can learn to recognize how certain behaviors impact different parts of the family unit. Moreover, numerous techniques can be implemented such as behavior and anger management, emotional regulation, problem-solving skills, social skills training, cognitive restructuring, and active listening (Beck, 2011) to assist the family unit with becoming better adjusted as a cohesive entity. Instead of treating

They are on a regular diet with few restrictions on fried foods and fat intake. The children eat school lunch and the parents from outside restaurant choices. Mom tries to cook a meal a day after work or they seldom eat Subway or Pizza Hut. No variation in weight gain or weight loss reported. They try to eat dinner as a family at home on a regular basis. However, this was not feasible all of the time due to dad’s late night work hours and CH basketball practices after school. They generally get 6-7 hours of sleep per night and denied any sleep deprivation. No exercise program has been implemented by this family. CH is the only physically, athletic member. DH stated that he likes to ride his bike. The children are active in Sunday school and participate in summer camp.

The model to use with the Jacques family would be the cognitive-behavior. The cognitive-behavior therapy offers different treatment. These treatments include adjunctive interventions, communal needs, and aversive control (Wetchler et. al., 2015). The adjunctive interventions would be to look at their behavior interaction. This would include that the Jacques family becomes aware of their communication skills. Communal needs involve the Jacques family learning intimacy, nurturance, and

The family is made up of five people: Claudia, the IP; Carolyn, mother; Laura, the sister; Don, the brother; and David, the father. The family is coming into therapy because there have been mounting concerns about Claudia and her behavior—acting out, staying out late, some fairly typical teenage stuff. For the purpose of this paper, I will be starting at the beginning where the family is first coming into therapy. I will first school that I will apply is Structural Family Therapy and the second school is Bowen Family Therapy.

Contextual family therapy model is a transgenerational mode that is based on the assumption that a family system behavioral patterns are mostly developed from one generation to another generation. This particular model is more of a distinct type model that is considered to be closely compared or associated to the psychoanalytic family model (Gehart, 2014). The major assumption for change in the contextual approach model, is to help all in the family system to establish a greater balance in each relationship through the intervention of fairness, trust, loyalty, and mutual support. These interventions is considered to be the focal point for the contextual family therapy model (Gangamma, Bartle-Haring &

Cognitive-behavioral family therapy provides many strengths for families. It also helps strengthen the relationship between couples that are married. Therapists treating couples who are married use strategies to improve the foundation of their marriage. In cognitive behavioral family therapy couples are taught to express themselves clearly and are taught new behaviors to improve communication and establish a solid union as partners. They are also taught strategies to solve marital problems and ways to maintain positive control. Toggle appreciable family therapy provides a number of treatment interventions for the family to improve their emotional regulation. An example of an intervention is the downward Arrow which helps families Express their feelings and the emotions behind them it allows them to express their emotions and understand them while projecting in a calm manner not leading to recrimination. Nichols 2014 says the greatest shape of behavior therapy is its insistence on its serving what happens and then measuring change 186. The goal of therapy is to help each family member recognize their distortions in thinking and improve and change their behaviors. A weakness of cognitive behavioral therapy is that the emotional state of a client may not be good even though their behavior changes. Nichols (2014) provides a good example of how a mother reports that her son is performing household chores however she feels as though her son does not really want to do the

The history of family therapy began around 1960, when Gregory Bateson coined the term, “system thinking.” This type of therapy was a daring departure, both technically and philosophically, from traditional and individual treatment during the 1960s. Gregory Bateson was inspired. He felt that the unit known, as “the family” needed to be celebrated and that is exactly what he did” (Family Therapy, 2010, Para 1) Along with Gregory Bateson, are a list of several others who contributed to the evolution of Marriage and family counseling. This list includes the founder of social work, Mary Richmond, Mr. W. James, who researched the organic expression of social systems intervention and Mr. J. Dewey. Each of these

The first long-term goal is to improve communication skills among each family member. The interventions created to achieve this goal includes: 1) Rosalyn and Carl will complete weekly worksheets and homework assignments provided by their family therapist, 2) Each family member will learn and practice using I-statements to decreasing blaming behavior and increase self awareness, and 3) Each family member will write a letter to address one another and identify how their feelings in regards to the problems identified in therapy along with their ideas of how they can be a part of the solution to decrease the anxiety in the family.

Systemic and family therapy has developed to acknowledge that the interactional patterns of a family are not controlled by a single member or outside entity, but with the whole family, which is perceived as a functional transactional system of its own (Watzlawick, Weakland & Fisch, 1974). According to Virginia Satir (1994) this system is constantly changing whether it be slow or fast. This paper will further explore Virginia Satir’s Growth Model by explaining its basic assumptions, formulate the theory in practice, and provide an overview of treatment interventions. Moreover, how the Satir Growth Model emulates the core assumptions of systemic and communications theory will also be reviewed. The Satir Growth Model will be applied for treatment

Carl Whitaker began his work in psychiatry, studying mental illness in families. He realized that parents often try to overregulate their child’s actions and emotions. Children who are overregulated often suppress their feelings and emotions in order to avoid parental criticism. Nichols (2013) explains “Existential family therapy is founded on the premise that the root cause of family problems is emotional suppression.” (pg. 145). Whitaker believed