The Structural Family Therapy Model

The family system is founded on the notions that for change to occur in the life of an individual, the therapist must understand and work with the family as a whole. In working with the family, the therapist can understand how the individual in counseling functions within his family system and how the client’s behaviors connect to other people in the family. This theory also holds the perception that symptoms are a set of family habits and patterns passed down by generation and not a result of a psychological problem or an inability to change (Corey, 2017). Furthermore, the family system theory holds the idea that when a change occurs everyone in the unit is affected by the change.

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) 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.

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).

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

A common issue to be brought up during the sessions will be Frank’s abandonment along with his alcohol and drug use, inability to care for others, and all-around selfishness. Frank will experience blame from Fiona and the rest of the family. Fiona’s newfound guardianship of her siblings, and role confusion will be identified and obvious during the counseling sessions. Debbie’s pregnancy will also be brought into the session often, as it was what brought the family to counseling. Debbie will present as silent and unwilling to come to a solution. A common theme of the sessions and counseling may be lack of trust in Frank by Fiona and Debbie. Depending on the result of Debbie’s pregnancy decisions, there may be continuing arguments, disapproval, and triangulation occurring in the subsequent sessions.

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

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 &

Those who are undifferentiated, on the other hand, react emotionally and impetuously. Unable to maintain their own autonomy, they become fused with others in their family. Their emotional patterns are in sync with other members and they have a difficult time separating what they feel from the emotions of the family unit (Kerr & Bowen, 1988).

The use of mezzo-perspective is to focus on the group or family unit as a whole. Although the mezzo-perspective mainly focuses on a group or family unit, this type of perspective can also benefit an individual because it affects many different individuals at once. Research has shown that family units that are dysfunctional can benefit from structural family therapy. This type of therapy breaks down the family dynamics into subsystems. Each of these subsystems work within groups forming alliances, triangulations and boundaries with one another and others outside of the family. Furthermore, this type of subsystem analysis will be visible in the case study of the Clark family. Bob and Marie are parents of three children that appear to have a breakdown of boundaries both enmeshed and disengaged. Additionally, the parental alliance has fallen apart due to the discord around discipline of the children, over-bearing actions by Marie with her children, and intimacy issues. Lastly, triangulations appear to be repeating through generations, Bob and Marie actions display similarly to their own parents, that they wanted to avoid when having their own family.

My own personal experience plays a part here as I don’t believe my family was ever “fully actualized.” Independence and autonomy was stressed, however, warmth and connectedness between members was not. Feelings were definitely suppressed in my household growing up, and even today sharing openly feels awkward. Whitaker, as well as Satir, has inspired my theoretical framework because I see the importance of the affective or emotional layer of family interactions.

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.