Structural Family Therapy

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.

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).

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

This paper evaluates the Structural Family Therapy model and its impact on the Emotionally Focused Therapy by Sue Johnson. This paper will discuss the concepts of therapy utilized within the Structural Family Therapy model and how Sue Johnson utilized many of its methods when constructing Emotionally Focused Therapy model. The history of family therapy will be evaluated and the goals of family therapy. Research has proven that due to these clinical practices, families and couples are allowed to evolved issues in which they face into healthy relationships by evaluating patterns in behaviors and past events in their lives. Therapy focuses on the correction of the dysfunctional family as a cohesive unit and does not place focus on the individual. Therefore we find the psychotherapy as a family unit deems to be more effective than previous practices of an isolated session with only the patient and therapist.

Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.

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).

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

Haley and Madanes’ approach to strategic family therapy argues that change occurs through the process of the family carrying out assignments issued by the therapist. As described in Madanes’ Strategic Family Therapy (1981), “strategic therapists attempt to design a therapeutic strategy for each specific problem.” Therapists issue directives that are designed to shift the framework of the family to resolve the displaying problem. Treatment of these issues would include intense involvement, carefully planned interventions designed to reach clear goals, frequent use of therapist-generated directives or assignments, and paradoxical procedures.

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.

Journal 3: Structural 1. The development of Structural was highly influenced by Haley. In what ways are these models similar and different?

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

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