Reflection Paper On Structural Family Therapy

A therapist who works from a family system perspective takes on the role of teacher, model and consultant (Corey, 2017). The therapist is active in forming a relationship with the family by acknowledging and

Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.

The movie Ordinary People is a movie which looks at a family struck by tragedy, It shows how an upper middle-class family handles life when tragedy strikes unexpectedly, and family order is turned into chaos. The movie in essence sheds light into a family, due to a tragedy, has turned into separate individuals living in the same house, who lack of communicating their grief effectively. The movie was shown through a realistic lens, without over dramatization; looked into misplaced guilt at every level. The inability of the family to work through the tragedies lead them to a place where they each felt a breakdown within each other as well as the family dynamic.

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.

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) has a few interventions within the theoretical model that I could see myself using with clients (families) from diverse backgrounds with diverse presenting problems. I am in agreement with the way this model looks at the different types of families and the types of issues they present with such as the patterns common to troubled families; some being "enmeshed," chaotic and tightly interconnected, while others are "disengaged," isolated and seemingly unrelated. This model also helped me understand that families are structured in "subsystems" with "boundaries," their members not seeing these complexities and problems that are going on

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).

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 a model of treatment based on systems theory that was developed by Salvador Minuchin. Structural family therapy features emphasis is mostly on structural change as the main goal of therapy; it pays close attention to the individual but also acknowledges the importance of family in the healing process of the individual.

Marriage and family therapists are very much needed and are growing in demand. The stigma of seeing a therapist for marital and family problems is disappearing thus making people more likely to seek help for issues they cannot resolve on their own. There has also been an increased recognition of the field of marriage and family therapy (http://www.bls.gov). Over half of managed health care providers and employee assistance programs employ or contract with MFTs and 91% of graduates in 1992 from COAMFTE accredited programs were employed not long after graduation (http://www.aamft.org). According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the field of marriage and family therapy is expected to see a growth of 30% by 2016 making it one of the fastest growing of all occupations (http://www.bls.gov).

Structural Family Therapy (SFT) was invented by Salvador Minuchin while working with lower-socioeconomic-level Black families (Gladding, 2015). A main premise of the theory is that “an individual’s

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.

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

This process can position the communication process for exoneration and forgiveness which give a high probability in re-establishing a balance relationship. Establishing relational truth and constructive entitlement which is guided by the therapist, the wrongdoer within the family system can give insight to show evident of the hurt he/she has caused. This can lead the wrongdoer to the process of relational trust moving to a level of restoration and mending the broken relationship (Mauldin, & Anderson, 1998).

I chose the video with Harry Aponte that used the Structural approach for the theoretical framework. In my opinion this approach really focuses on how families live and maintain with certain problematic behaviors. This approach challenges the family dynamic, which then alters the family structure and changes the problematic patterns of behavior. In my opinion using the six p format really helps to see what the issue is and what is currently occurring with the family then in return the therapist can plan for intervention on a case-to-case basis. I think by focusing on families with this approach you really see the closeness of members and how they come together to work together which is really crucial to implementing change. Over the past thirty plus year’s structural family therapy has been one of the most popular forms of

My theoretical approach to family therapy is very integrative as I believe families cannot be described nor treated from a single-school approach. I view humans through a humanistic and existential lens but am more technically structural and solution-based. With this integrative approach, I believe I will be the most effective in helping families grow and reach their goals.