Functional Family Therapy, Differential Response, And Reflective Family Practices

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.

The basic concepts of this type of therapy are boundaries, subsystems, complementary and alignments which are easily applied and grasped. The most important aspect the therapist must keep in perspective is that every family is made up of structure and that these structures are seen only when the members of the family interact. If the therapist does not consider the entire structure of the family and intervene in only one of the many subsystems are most likely not to attain a lasting change.

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).

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.

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

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

Family therapy is a technique that has many alternative approaches to every aspect of treatment which Nichols (2014), states may present a challenge when describing a basic technique. The two models of family therapy in which I feel that I would be most effective and comfortable with would be, experiential family therapy and solution-focused brief therapy. I feel most comfortable with these models because, I adapt to the role of the therapist of both therapies naturally. According to Nichols (2014), when families seek therapy they are stuck in a life-cycle transition, sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not obvious. I’ve found that during the first session an excellent question is to ask the client why now so that they can

Haley and Madanes’ approach to strategic family therapy argues that change occurs through the process of the family carrying out assignments issued by the therapist. As described in Madanes’ Strategic Family Therapy (1981), “strategic therapists attempt to design a therapeutic strategy for each specific problem.” Therapists issue directives that are designed to shift the framework of the family to resolve the displaying problem. Treatment of these issues would include intense involvement, carefully planned interventions designed to reach clear goals, frequent use of therapist-generated directives or assignments, and paradoxical procedures.

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

(Hartnett, Carr, Hamilton, & Sexton, 2017) The aim of the study was to use a qualitative methodology to describe therapist implementation and family experiences of the three phases of Functional Family Therapy (FFT)(Hartnett, Carr, Hamilton, & Sexton, 2017). Five FFT therapists and four parents of families who had been treated by those therapists were interviewed and thematic analysis performed to analyze the data. Results suggest that both common factor and model‐specific treatment elements, flexibility within model delivery, and strategies which aim to improve parental self‐efficacy and communication are key elements of successful therapy when practiced within a manualized model‐driven framework (Hartnett, Carr, Hamilton, & Sexton, 2017). The client and his/her

therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of

Becvar, D. & Becvar R. (2009). Family therapy: a systemic integration. (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

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.