Family Theory

Structural

• Founder: Salvador Minuchin

• Symptoms understood from interactional patterns (organization) within a family. Symptoms are a byproduct of structural failings.

• Goals: Reduce symptoms of dysfunction and bring about structural change within the system by modifying transactional rules and establishing more appropriate boundaries

Strategic

Founder: Jay Haley

Similarities with Structural and often combined

Treatment Goals:

• Resolve presenting problems by focusing on behavioral sequences and get people to behave differently

• Shift family organization so problem no longer functional

• Move family towards appropriate stage of family development

Symptoms

Minuchin’s central idea was that an individual’s symptoms are best understood from the vantage point of interactional patterns, or sequences, within a family.

Symptoms are a byproduct of one’s environment.

Role of counselor/clients

Systemic therapists recognize the individual’s importance but emphasize that a person’s relationships and interactions within their family or community exert greater influence than therapy alone.

The client is the whole family and the counselor wants to understand the entire system.

The goals of structural family therapy include:

1. Reducing symptoms of family dysfunction and

2. Bringing about structural change within the system by modifying the family’s transactional rules and establishing more appropriate boundaries.

Main concepts for Bowenian family therapy

• Evolved from psychoanalytic principles and practices

• Viewed patterns across multiple generations

• The family is the emotional unit and unresolved emotional reactivity must be addressed.

• Differentiation of the self

Founders (associate them with their particular models)

Murray Bowen: Multigenerational Family Therapy

Virginia Satir: Conjoint family therapy

Virginia Satir: Human Validation Process Model

Satir’s human validation process model

• Relationships over techniques

• Power of congruence to help communication

• Making contact. Developing a nurturing triad. Empathetic listening, therapeutic presence, and nurturance.

Phenomenology

Understanding families through members’ subjective experiences and interactions.

Feminist, multicultural, and postmodern approaches to family therapy seek to

Reduce or eliminate the power and impact of the family therapist. Taken together, postmodern approaches represent a real paradigm shift in the field of family therapy.

Because families are interconnected with broader social and cultural systems, a ____ is essential for effective family therapy.

multilayered process of family therapy