Jay Haley: A Pioneer In Family Therapy

Family Therapy can be implemented in a different ways in a program that provides a facet of services, but it’s imperative that the approaches used are appropriate for the individual or families utilizing services. Functional Family Therapy is used to help deal with substance abuse in families but can also be used to assist with behavioral issues in children. A well rounded family service program can not only use this one approach but utilize other approaches to meet the needs of the population being served. And while implementing the service ethics will play a major role in the therapy being providing.

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).

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).

John Banmen said “Virginia Satir, the pioneer of conjoint family therapy, has, over the years taught, and developed a family therapy system based on the belief that people have the resources to move their life patterns from a basic survival level to a higher level of becoming more fully human.” A brief overview of Satir’s work will define communication and self-esteem as Satir would use them, create an understanding of family dynamics, which allows the reader to fully conceptualize how Satir’s put her theory into practice.

When viewing this family in a Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) lens, we would focus on the solutions rather than the problem. Although the initial assessment would be similar to that of structural and strategic therapy, all of these issues would be explore, we would focus on the solutions rather than the problem. Although the initial assessment would be similar to that of structural and strategic therapy, all of these issues would be explored in a way that allowed for less “problem talk” and more solution based ideas.

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

In this paper I will be describing how the first two session of the Brice family went. I will talk about what systems approach to therapy was used, and will include how Whitaker and Napier conceptualized the family’s difficulties. I will also describe how this differs from an individual understanding, and will talk about what specific interventions they used to support their systemic understanding of this family.

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

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

Communications Theory is a therapeutic modality that can be used as an intervention in family therapy settings. Developed by the well-respected family therapist, Virginia Satir, the concepts and techniques behind Communications Theory have earned much respect amongst therapists worldwide. Satir focused on the importance of establishing and maintaining clear channels of communication to improve the lives of families who struggle with myriad challenges. She believed that families needed to be given ways to see hope more clearly. She also professed that the presenting problems may not be as important as the way in which people cope with the problems. More clearly, her focus was more on helping people gain hope through better communications skills which lead to more effective coping mechanisms (…).

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

This paper will summarize the theory of family systems developed by Murray Bowen. It will describe the eight key components to Bowenian therapy and the techniques used during practice. Strengths and limitations will be exposed, followed by a summary of the importance of integration between psychology and family systems theory.

Therefore, this therapy can be used to help families with schizophrenic members, violent temperaments, uncontrolled substance or alcohol abuse, chronic problems (that affect all members), and those who want to improve relationship skills. Its goal is to build a supportive collaboration between counselor and the family and teaches skill-building techniques to help families gain control over their circumstances. Strength and resiliency are taught to families dealing with chronic problems (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p.415). Psychoeducation does follow some of the techniques used by traditional treatments, such as cooperating with the family, acquiring the trust of its members, remaining unbiased, and figuring out the best methods to have positive conclusions. In summary, the program helps families learn problem-solving approaches that will help them have prosperous marital or parent-child relationships (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013, p.416).

The Haley and Madanes’ therapy removes the blame from the family members and claims that their power struggles and symptoms are representative of a malfunction within the system, rather than as a result from the pathological behavior of any one of the family members. The Haley and Madanes’ model ignores the power aspects of the hierarchical structure and focuses on strategies to restore harmony and balance to the family system. Although Michael has voiced his resistance, his defiance to participate in therapy, the therapist is responsible for change to occur with all the members of the family, even to influence and convince Michael that the therapeutic sessions will benefit his family through thoughtful suggestions and recommendations. For

How I understand this whole thing of family therapy is that therapist uses theories and the systemic to assist with different approaches by acknowledging the problems that can be fixed. When I become a counselor or a therapist I would want to work with youth that is going through life issues, and the only way for me to assist these youth with those issues is knowing and understanding how to use the theories into perspective, if I'm not able to do so, I wouldn't be able to understand the youth problem. Such as behavioral approach, I feel as though, this approach play a big part in youth society today. Every human person has a positive and negative behavioral where we learn a self-control. Albert Ellis (1962) evolved an approach ( rational-emotive