Structural Family Therapy For Troubled Families Essay

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 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.

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.

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 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,

Salvador Minuchin viewed joining a paramount precursor to familial change (Miuchin & Fishman, 1981). Given that the therapist is going to be in a position of shifting transactions between family members through the process of challenging current dynamics, the therapist needs to “earn his right to lead” (Miuchin & Fishman, 1981, p. 29). In structural family therapy model, “joining is letting the family know that the therapist understands them and is working with and for them” (Miuchin & Fishman, 1981, pp. 31-32). I am starting with joining because I believe this will the most important initial therapeutic intervention with the Maxson, as a young white female therapist given the amount of discrimination faced by family members, which is especially vocalized by Troy (Washington, Back, & Rudin, 2016). In joining, I must also pay attention to my own values regarding family role and respect the position of individual family members prior to shifting how parental decisions are made (Melito, 2003). I would first seek to understand the particular perspective and experience of each family member. It will also be during this part of treatment that I would start testing the hypotheses formulated upon initial contacts with the family (Minuchin, 1981).

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

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

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

Bowenian family counseling approach presents similar aspects that range throughout various family counseling theories. One approach to family counseling that is similar to Bowenian theory is structural therapy. Structural family counseling focuses on habitual behaviors and the role individual’s play in relation to those behaviors (Bohlinger, n.d.). Bowenian therapy reviews a minimum of three generations to assess transgenerational patterns. Both therapies point out a form of boundaries, however, Bowenian therapy looks to differentiate individuals within a family group, as oppose to structural therapy, which desires to change, clarify, and mark boundaries within a family (Nelson, n.d.). Experimental therapy recognizes discord when togetherness and autonomy are not balanced, like Bowenian therapy (Bohlinger, n.d.). Like solution based and cognitive–behavioral therapy, the role of the Bowenian counselor is to teach and coach clients (Nelson, n.d.). Also, like Milan therapy, Bowenian therapists are to remain neutral and avoid taking side within the family (avoid triangles) (Nelson, n.d.). Like object-relations therapy, Bowenian therapy seeks to help clients differentiate themselves (Nelson, n.d.). Although the Bowenian concept presents several similarities to other approaches, there are numerous

Systemic therapy was based on Minuchin’s Structural Therapy model (1968) followed by Bateson's cybernetic model (1972) The first order cybernetic model considerd that problems within a family system should be focused on by strategically solving problems, meeting family goals and help change a person's dysfunctional behaviour. D Shazer (1985). These concepts in Systemic therapy were known as the major paradigms and were taught by therapists such as Minuchin in Milan until the information-processing systems were introduced. They were characterized by the therapist's observation of the system from the external social world. Minuchin S & Fisherman,HC (1981)

It is important to note that it is the right type of relationships, rather than a large quantity of relationships which are the goal of relational therapy. An integration of ideas from structural family therapy helps us see that relationships can also be the source of many problems. In families, if there are imbalances or structural disorganization, the relationships are not able to

Every family has a unique system with a set of rules, mostly unspoken, that govern their behavior and interactions. In dysfunctional families, the symptom of their dysfunction is typically sourced within their family system. The symptom also has a function – it protects family members from uncomfortable conflict. Dysfunctional families and couples often maintain negative patterns of interacting, and are unable to transition into new behavioral patterns without therapeutic intervention. In order to help families develop out of their systematic ways of behaving, it is important to understand the specific family system that is presented. With a keen understanding of the family’s culture, beliefs, etc., the therapist can develop therapeutic rituals, which are prescribed actions aimed at altering behavioral patterns that are responsible for maintaining the symptom. The ritual is not a verbal explanation or criticism of the family system, rather it is a specific set of actions designed to help families create new patterns of interaction and meaning in their relationships. (p, 5).