Scott Family Research Paper

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.

Structural family therapy is associated with the work of Salvador Minuchin and is an evidence based therapy influenced by brief strategic and eco-systemic structural family therapy (Gerhart, 2014). Structural family therapists are active in the counseling sessions and will want to have all of the members of the family participate in the counseling sessions. The therapist is then able to map family structures in order to resolve relation problems between family members. The therapist will then make assessments and set goals to restructure the family interactions while focusing on family strengths.

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).

Structural family therapy focuses on encouraging proactive healthy change within the family, with an emphasis on structure, subsystems, and boundaries. Family Structure is invisible set of rules that organize the ways family members relate to each other. Structure resists change. The therapist will essentially be a change agent to facilitate this reorganization (Minuchin,

From a structural therapy perspective, it would be important to work on re/defining and restructuring the family so that it can operate in a more functional and healthy way. Clarifying and defining the boundaries between Nancy and her children, particularly Sarah, will be critical in trying to erode the enmeshment that is currently occurring. These treatment goals might be more difficult to achieve with Melanie and Amy considering they are currently living with their great grandmother; however, effort on the social workers part should still be made.

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.

You brought out some good points referring to the ideal family will encounter inevitable difficulties but will be able to recognize the need for change in family structure in order to maintain appropriate balance and success (Becvar & Becvar, 2013). Regarding structural family therapy the therapist has to enter into the family system to understand the rules that administers the functioning of the system. Then plan and obtain an understanding of the relationship between the family members (subsystems), upset the dysfunctional relationships with the family subsystem and then cause the family to become more stable and healthy. For example; John, his wife Wanda, and their two sons Andrew and Andre appear to be the perfect family. But underneath

The Brown family is a nuclear family, consisting of 2 parents and 2 children. Mr. Brown the father is a 30-year-old man who was laid of work just before the birth of his second child. Mr. Brown has a college education, but has not been able to find a new job; he is a hard-working individual and while looking for a job, he delivers pizza, mows loans, and then also helps his wife around the house and take care of their children. Mr. Brown believes that he is in good health because he is young but he has not seen a Doctor in years due to lack of medical insurance.

Structural Family therapy is a technique of psychotherapy. Structural Family therapy addresses problems the effect the way a family functions. In structural Family therapy, therapists have to understand how the families functions and the rules within the family, this includes being able to map the relationships between the members in the family or the subsets of the family. The goal of structural family therapy is to stabilize the family into a healthier pattern. Valuation is an essential and ongoing part of structural family therapy. Instantly upon joining the family sometimes before meeting them, based on intake sheet information the therapist is forming hypotheses about the family’s structural arrangement.

“Family therapy is psychotherapeutic treatment of the family to bring about better psychological functioning” (Sharf, 2012. P. 533). An early influence on family therapy include Ackerman’s approach of becoming emotionally involved while looking for unconscious themes in the family; this approach is used by a family therapist, but there is not a clear method of therapy. There is a study of communication patterns in families with members having symptoms of schizophrenia that defined the dysfunctional ways of relating within the family, they include double bind, marital schism and marital skew, and pseudo mutuality. General systems theory is an approach that focused on how the family functions as a whole unit, which includes feedback that has two patterns, linear and circular, and homeostasis that includes positive feedback and negative feedback. Family systems theory is based on four approaches to family systems therapy that are “based on the individual’s ability to differentiate his intellectual functioning from feelings,” this system includes differentiation of self, triangulation, nuclear family emotional systems, family projection process, emotional cutoff, multigenerational transmission process, sibling position, and societal regression. Structural family concepts are organized by family rules and guidelines that include family structure, family subsystems, boundary permeability, and alignments and coalitions. Strategic therapy focuses on problems with the

Counselors who utilize structural family therapy as their primary counseling approach with their clients must have an understanding of who the leading figure is, assumptions related to the approach, how the theory was developed, the concepts and techniques related to the counseling approach, metaperspective, the effects, and

Keith, thank you for your post. I agree that personally that the school of thought concerning structural approach has the potential to create a positive, growth based therapy in family counseling. Furthermore, I feel this therapy method has the advantage of others through structured enactments. Through enactment, the counselor can develop an understanding the family’s unique homeostasis. And develop a treatment plan that will be more direct to each of the individual’s roles within the family unit. However, the one downside that I mentioned within my post is the counselor must have the ability to take and maintain control. As this counseling method would be challenging with a highly dysfunctional family. If the counselor cannot maintain control

Structural famaily therapy involves promoting structure to the family and the situation.  Structural therapist our ever changing so that the family can find what works for them (Bitter, 2014).   Just as multigenerational

Structural theory, developed by Salvador Minuchin, believes that problems that the individuals evidence stem from the fact that problems occur within the family unit itself and that the family is divided into several component parts. To address these problems the therapist, as it were, therefore steps into he family unit, becomes "a part of it" and intervenes. His doing so not only enables him to see the family patterns form the inside; thereby understanding faults of fission but also enable him to practice therapy.

Structural therapists see dysfunction as it relates to the family. According to structural therapists the reason dysfunction occurs is when stressful situations happen that require individuals to adapt but they find themselves unable to do so because of boundaries that are either too rigid or too “blurred”. If the boundaries are too rigid it prevents “stress from being transmitted to all members of the system” and if they are too blurred it can lead to “immediate and intense transmission of stress and potentially excessive reactions” (p. 424). Bowenian therapists see dysfunction as problems that arise from the combination of anxiety and the differentiation of self. The higher the level of a person’s differentiation or adaptability the better they will be at dealing with stress and thus combating dysfunction.