Personal Experience: Collaborative Leadership

Choose two family systems therapy theories that you are interested in learning more about and applying to the family subsystem you analyzed in the Unit 5 assignment. Write a paper in which you describe the central concepts, goals, and typical interventions of each model, using scholarly sources (journal articles, books, or edited book chapters) to support your writing. Your paper must use a minimum of three scholarly, peer-reviewed sources for each model.

A second characteristic that may be helpful is a parenting class. Twice a month, the Housing Authority has a speaker or workshop that will assist parents with working with their children. Through Structural Family Therapy, the family will establish a set of rules for their daily functioning, and these rules will form its own structure. A therapist that is employing Structural Family Therapy must assess the family’s interactions, figure out who is the family’s hierarchy, the alliance within the family, such as the mother and son against the father or siblings, or siblings against siblings or another sibling

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.

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

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) is an approach used in family therapy settings. In every family there are both strengths and weaknesses in how the family functions, this type of therapy focuses on the ability of families to move forward any dysfunctional issues they can encounter. In every family there has to be structure, a way of doing things, who is in charge and yet still be able to adapt to change when it is necessary or problems begin to occur, in order to repair and alter issues of dysfunction and reposition family boundaries, many therapists who use the structural family approach have the belief that the problems the family is experiencing “emerge in families when their boundaries (that define structures) are not clear and when

Structural family therapy is one of the many therapeutic interventions used with troubled families. The name isn’t an easy one to say, nor is it a type of therapy that is used often in Hollywood but structural family therapy is like most other types of family systems therapies under the psychological category. The different types of therapies have a larger view of family as a whole that lives and operates within a larger community, culture, and organization. The family system will thrive over time and make changes ideally. Most times a family is not able to get out of the hole it has placed itself in which turns out to be related to behavioral or mental health issues of one of its family members. Aside from keeping the focus on the individual family member’s mental stability, structural family therapy centers around the problems in the structure of the family, the issues in the way the family communicates. Structural family therapy refuses to maintain that the family’s communication, or transactions are the root of the problem, instead the family’s transactions encourage the issues within the family.

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

Structural Family therapy (SFT) grew from the Family Systems Theory (FST) paradigm. The FST paradigm asserts that individual behavior cannot be changed without changing the influence of those within the system (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). Bateson (1972) held the belief that all life was interconnected and influencing one another. This was a major shift from the singular individualistic view that therapy held in the past. FST expanded the family system from that of only a nuclear family to include family of origin, extended families and families of choice. Hecker, Mims, and Bougner (2015) further explained that family systems are more than the individuals they encompass, they are also influenced by the systems within its environment. Social and community systems are examined

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.

“enhancing self-awareness, recognizing values of ‘congruence, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding’, self-responsibility, understanding one’s feelings, awareness of one’s own perspective, being open to experience, being rational, living a fuller life, positive life-direction, acceptance of one’s and other’s uniqueness, prizing one and others, and living a moral and ethical life” (pg. 343).

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.

However, it is not merely because I accidentally became exposed to the model as I found an internship that I come to favor this model over others that I have been learning about in this course. I like Structural Family Therapy because it is very relevant and practical with the families that I have encountered. For example, a major goal of Structural Family therapy is to help “families to identify and alter maladaptive family systems or interaction processes, such as transgenerational coalitions, scapegoating, triangulations, and so forth (Barkley, Guevremont, Anastopoulos, & Fletcher, 1992, p. 452). In my work as a family based therapist, it has been easy to observe that these dynamics are common in distressed families and I have seen how damaging they are to individuals and to the family as well. However, through Structural Family Therapy interventions such as enactments, unbalancing, intensity raising, these patterns can be shifted (Minuchin, & Fishman, 1981). Furthermore, Structural family therapy has been continuing to adapt to the challenges of the twenty-first century (McAdams et al, 2016) and that additionally makes it a very appealing model.

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 &

Describe a specific example(s) of your personal growth and development through your leadership experiences in college. See the help text for additional direction.

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).