Family therapists have challenging tasks of advising and guiding members of a family on the best living practices. According to the family setup in the case, the family and marriage therapist of their choice has a challenging task of choosing the best person to interview among the various family members. In this case in particular, evaluation and interaction of all the family members by the therapist would be the best choice. Marceline, Leon and Michael jr. should give each their side of the story and this could be done in different series of interviews, which is each one of then in a different session and then focus on the whole family so as to derive the level of depression and frustration within the nuclear family. Levels of communication and the emotions involved in the family and the patterns in which all these aspects are handled are varying. As some of the emotions have been displayed in the text, the family therapy can first evaluate Marceline and Leon to get the in-depth issues at hand. This is because as the parents, they should try to create a good and peaceful environment for Michael Jr. despite the problems they are going through like unemployment and loss of their homes they should be good role models to their children at all times. Marceline has shown signs of despair, frustrations, emotional instability to a point that she considers committing suicide as an easy way out the life problems. This shows that there have been so many piled up anger and frustrations that have been bottled up for a long time since Michael left her life and was left alone with baby to bring him up. The continuing life and social frustrations have not made her life any easy. With Leon , he’s resulted to drinking and as much as drinking m... ... middle of paper ... ...to undertake the therapy sessions and hence will be able to handle and embrace the changes that will come along. Professionalism and integrity are essential attributes in counseling sessions and should be up-held. Works Cited American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, (2001). Code of Ethics. Published by American Association for Marriage and Family,112 south street; Alexandria. Golderberg Herbert and Golderberg Irene (2007). Family Therapy: overview, seventh edition cengage learning Inc. Heckle Lorna L. and Wetchler Joseph L. (2003). AN introduction to marriage and family therapy, New York Haworth clinical practice press, rout ledge. Yoav Levee and Yitzhak Avisar, (2006). Journal of Marital and Family Therapy; Use of standardized assessment instruments in couple therapy; the role of attitudes and professional factors. Blackwell Main Street.
According to smith and Hamon (2012), Families are considered as a whole in society. However, they believed that couples have many components in which makes up the family, if one component is missing, the family as a whole can get unbalance (Smith & Hamon, 2012). In the Brice’s family, communication was the component that was missing. The couple was not able to communicate their differences, which was what caused Carolyn and David to verbally insult each other. Smith and Hamon (2012), also explain that a person who expresses his or her feeling is considered as someone who is breaking the functions of their family system; especially if the person is focusing on the individual who is causing the problem, rather than the problem itself. In the Brice family, Carolyn could be considered the one that cause the dysfunction in the family structure because she was focusing on David as the problem of their marriage, rather than focusing of the elements that are causing their problems. Smith and Hamon (2012) explain that individuals should focus on how to solve a problem, rather than trying to find who is causing the
Ripley, J. S., & Worthington Jr., E. L. (2014). Couple therapy: A new hope-focused approach. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. ISBN:
Mim's father has recently divorced her mother and married Kathy, a waitress at Denny's whom he met shortly after separating from his wife. Therefore Mim's mother has moved to Cleveland. The relationship between Mim and her father is not the best, she is much closer to her mother who is half Cherokee and more of the free spirit in the relationship. Mim's father is set on medicating Mim as she shows signs of being manic depressive like her mothers sister Isabel who committed suicide. But then it will be revealed to us that the letters are adressed to Mim's unbourn half sister. Kathy is pregnant. Recently Mim has been prescribed Abilify but does not want to take the medication.
Jackson lives in the southside of Chicago, which can prove to be a very rough neighborhood. They do not view mental illness well, and have likely never encountered a person with a psychological disorder as severe as Mrs. Jackson’s. Despite this, she does have some resources around her to assist her in recovery. The Gallagher family is a major resource for her. They support and love Mrs. Jackson and wants what is best for her, and state multiple times that they will do what they need to do to help her. This also applies to her daughter Karen, another resource who is willing to help Mrs. Jackson get better. She also some internal strengths that will prove to be helpful. Her kindness towards others drives her to seek help because she cannot be there for her friends and family like she should be. Along with this, her willingness to get better will prove to be an
Annually, therapy helps an estimated 25 million people, and about 80 percent in almost all fields of therapy finds it to be effective. With therapy, therapist has helped people live happier, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. Therapy is a time consuming yet rewarding career that allows someone to help strengthen a person’s physical, emotional, and mental state.
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
2). My integrative approach is built on postmodern narrative therapy, but also includes techniques and definitions based on family systems and experiential theories to help clients understand their own family narratives. My desire is to use any technique that will help individuals create a preferred positive future. In this paper I expound upon my personal integrative approach to working with individuals, couples, or families in therapy. I share my theory of how problems develop, how client change is facilitated, my role as therapist and goals for therapy based on post-modern and person-centered principles. I then describe the techniques I am comfortable using, and those that do not appeal to me, and end by explaining my views on power, gender, and multiculturalism in
Structural Family Therapy offers a framework that provides order and meaning within the family connections (Nichols, 2013). Divorce for a family is considered a significant transition for all parties involved. When counseling a family going through divorce the structural family therapist’s job is to build an alliance with the family and obtain information about the structure. The structure of the family consists of the roles, interactions, organization, and hierarchy. Family therapy yields the belief that changing the organization of the family leads to change in the individual members. The structural family therapist often will try to become part of the family to gain a perspective of their issues as whole so not to place the focus on one individual. Joining is an empathetic approach in helping families explain and break down their individual stories without uncomfortable challenge or unnecessary confrontation (Nichols, 2013). It is important to note that family dysfunction that often leads to divorce is not attributed to one individual, but the entire family system. In structural family therapy, part of dealing with the issue of divorce in the family is to focus on the interactions between all the family members both positive and negative. Through these interactions the therapist can discover where the conflicts arise, which will in turn help the therapist understand how these negative interaction affect the family. Family therapy in these cases allows for repair of long-standing interactional patterns in which divorce is just one of a series of ongoing transactions that are disruptive to the child’s development (Kaplan, 1977, p.75). The structural family therapist often has the family play out these family interactions via enactments so that he can get a firsthand look at maladaptive patterns, roles, and
Family is one of those words that have a significant meaning to various individuals. Family may be viewed one way to an individual and another way to someone else. Family consists of those who have played a particular role in one’s life, whether it is positive or negative. In this paper, I will assess Reymundo’s family both nuclear and extended and speak of how his family has become significant in his life and how they have played a role in his decisions. I will also speak of my personal reactions to the story as well as address ways that as a social worker I could work to impact the gang problems in Orlando.
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.
New York, NY: Guilford Press. Gurman, A., (Ed.). Clinical Handbook of Couple Therapy (4th ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
The techniques used in marriage and family counseling can be different. For instance, counselors will sometimes handle family therapy in different ways than they would couples or marital therapy. Both family and marriage c...
For the Davis family, one of the most important interventions would aim at improving open communication between family members. This scenario clearly describes poor communication between Shakeeka and her husband Ben, suggesting a lack of emotional support and impaired affective function of family. Isaiah’s withdrawal and lack of communication with the rest of the family can potentially lead to bigger problems such as his involvement in gang activity. Friedman, Bowden, and Jones (2003) state that family functional
In our society families are the foundation of all human relationships. Therefore learning to maintain and develop healthy families are the goals of family therapist. Counselors can use the Structural Family Therapy approach in counseling hurting families. The pioneer of structural family therapy is Salvador Minuchin (Hammond & Nichols, 2014).
A family came in for therapy. There are five people in this family. There are two teenage girls, an 18-year-old male, and a mother and a father. Lately, one of the girls is no longer attending school, she is also withdrawing from friends. She has been disrespectful towards dad. She has been posting lewd pictures on social media, and there are people in the neighborhood telling the parents that they have seen one of their daughters drinking when with their friends.