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The strengths and weaknesses of structural family therapy
The strengths and weaknesses of structural family therapy
The strengths and weaknesses of structural family therapy
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The thought of completing a genogram on my family was interesting because the majority of my family lives in Liberia. I have an aunt that lives here but we have an estranged relationship and we don’t communicate. The person I could have told me everything about my paternal family was my grandmother. However, my grandmother passed away in 2000 from high blood pressure. My grandparents had six children and the youngest daughter became my source for the information I needed. Doing this genogram has been very difficult for me because I learned that maternal grandparents are deceased and my aunts and uncle are also deceased. My mother is the only living family member that I know of. I never got the opportunity to have a relationship with my mother’s side of the family. My paternal grandfather died the years I was born which explains why I don’t remember him. I was told that he was sick and got paralyzed before his death. There is no substance abuse and mental in my family. However, high blood pressure runs in my family because it was the cause of my grandmother’s death like I mention above. I have two uncles and an aunt that are currently dealing with high blood pressure and my father has diabetes. Growing up, my parental family were very close and we had great communication. However, since my grandmother passed away, we have experience estranged in some relationships. I always thought my aunt Victoria raised me since I was born, but I didn’t go to live with her until I was 9 years old. I was informed that I was with my mother up to the age of 2 years, then I went to live my paternal grandmother until 9 years old. Sometimes when a child is raised by someone other than their mother, they think their mother didn’t want them. I used to ... ... middle of paper ... ...larity. Working with my family, the therapist will need to join with my family and build a therapeutic rapport because I need to know they can trust the therapist. Each member of my family have to feel like the therapist is working with them if not change will not occur. The use of family mapping will help distinguish the types of boundaries that exist among my family. With the disengagement within my family subsystems, using the enactment technique will illustrate the interaction among family members. I am close to the siblings that I grew up with and my father his siblings were very close. With that being said, I will like to see the dynamic between my aunts and uncles when they are all in the same room together after years of being apart. I chose structural family therapy because at the end of the therapy session, I want the restructuring of my family structure.
Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
I was drawn into the Brice family's story and by the end of the book I cared about them and felt as if I knew them. I appreciated the author's no holds barred, realistic portrayal of the therapist and client relationship. Not only is the reader drawn into the subject's inner world, the reader is also pulled into the world of the therapist and given a ring side seat into the cognitive operation of the therapist mind. Napier and Whitaker lay out the theories that inform their practice. For example, they identify, feedback spirals, triangulation, transference, and enmeshed identities, for the reader and then demonstrate through the narrative, methods for assisting families in leaping over these
... be shown that we care about him and want to provide stability in his life. It’s importance for a therapist to share things about themselves and give their honest opinion in order to make the patient comfortable and trusting of them. (Comer, 2011, p. 43)
I could easily gain the trust of the patients. My supervisor relies on me a lot because I do whatever is asked of me. I with the other therapist was the first persons to interact with the patients once they got out of their surgeries. People tend to be a little nervous and this makes it very essential to give care and confidence to them. I could easily get along with them and help them to move and make them realize the importance to move and exercise for their body after the
Napier provides a crucial exploration of the therapy of a family struggling with battles for the structure of their family and battles to define and grow their relationships with one another. Napier and Whitaker seamlessly and purposely work with each family member, educating and
...n all family members get involved in trying to help. By the individual’s family being apart of their therapy session, it shows how much their family members care for them and want them to get help with whatever issues they may be having. This is very important because it is a sign of love and it is showing the support that they have for one another. Therapist have also found that during strategic family therapy, they can help all family members with helping to encourage each other as well as create rules and interactions that are psychological healthy for all family members who are involved. It will make it easier for the family members to all get along and understand each other. When one person in the family is having issues, the other members should take the time to talk to one another and help each other out, especially the family member who is in need of help.
Research has shown that a strong therapeutic alliance is necessary for establishing a beneficial contact between the therapist and the client. If the therapist does not encourage the creation of a reliable therapeutic alliance from the beginning of the treatment, it will be hard to develop a constructive relationship with the client later. Establishing the therapeutic alliance will increase the chances of achieving the goal of the treatment because the clients will be willing to cooperate if they trust and respect the therapist. Clients are not likely to cooperate with therapists who impose their authority aggressively. Instead of imposing their authority on the patient, therapists should develop work with their patients by building a mutual relationship based on trust, understanding, and respect for the client.
My theoretical approach to family therapy is very integrative as I believe families cannot be described nor treated from a single-school approach. I view humans through a humanistic and existential lens but am more technically structural and solution-based. With this integrative approach, I believe I will be the most effective in helping families grow and reach their goals.
Furthermore, my goal is to let client fix their problems on their own through insight and guidance from the therapist. I envision a successful therapeutic process being when a client follows their goals and achieves positive outcomes in their lives. I seek to gain a therapeutic process with my clients by building rapport, trust, and helping them gain insight. When my clients are stuck and need motivation, I plan to remind them about their goals and the positive things that will come with change. If family is important to a client, informing the client about their family and their happiness may help motivate them to continue to
In this genogram reflection, I discuss the ongoing issue of trust between my parents and me. In distinguishing between my parent's view and my own, my purpose is to highlight my experiences of the family issue. I will explore how my family trust issues impact my personal and professional life. The reflection is structured as follows. After providing a contextual summary of my experience, I will examine how trust issues facilitate and impede my clinical work. Trusting my parents is one of my most difficult struggles in life. I do not trust my parents because of past abuse, manipulation, and disregard for my feelings. I have only revealed my mother's illness to three people in my life. In the interest of providing adequate family context, I will reveal my mother's borderline personality
For the longest time it never occurred to me that I actually did have a mother. The facts I had just weren't enough, I needed more evidence.
What happens to such type of therapy is that the person is limited to just two options- accepting or rejecting the idea relayed by the family therapist. With the abstract communication approach, one ends up with a yes-no, all or nothing type of confrontation. By contrast, storytelling comes out as a collaborative encounter which encourages the listener to participate in an arm-in-arm activity with the family therapist. This narrative element of family therapy is more of a rhythmic dance rather than a communication
My mother’s parents did not have a formal high school education, aside from that all other family members have had a high school
Structural family therapist have exemplified within the context relational therapies that uncovers stressors in relationship between individuals (Vetere, 2001). Structural family therapy has been known to be called “interventive approach” because of the “intensity” to encourage clients to change (Hammond & Nichols, 2014).
Above is my immediate family, which is graphed by simple facts into this genogram. All of the information that was included into this genogram was known information. Since all of these family members are still alive, it made it easier to compile this information. Each specific family has its own dynamic. With my parents and brother, we are not that tight-knit; I don’t share every inch of my life and haven’t for many years, but equally they do not ask. Whereas, my mother and her brother along with her parents are very tight knit. They share everything and do a lot of things together, while being more conservative with their actions and behavior. They are always on their best behavior. On the flip side, my father and his parents and