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.
Children enter the world as part of preexisting systems. They enter parental systems and families that already have rules, roles and boundaries, and more are made as children grow and the family develops. These transitions can be confusing and challenging for all members involved leading to feelings of fear, anger and even helplessness. Members within the family strive to feel competent and grasp at a sense of security as their family structure and organization shifts with each new addition or change. Normal family development is a delicate balance between change and stability. The most important rules to help maintain a sense of stability and security within the family, according to Virginia Satir, are the ones that govern communication (Bitter, 2009, p. 125). Rules via communication can be verbal or nonverbal but are usually intended to provide children safety as they advance outside the home. However, children hear absolutes in rules such as “Always listen to your elders,” which quickly becomes impossible to follow all the time. Children begin to question such rules and parental authority begins to lose weight. Children also learn rules by observing the behavior of their parents, who typically do not follow the absolutes in rules they give their children. According to Satir, in healthy families, rules are few and consistently applied and are humanly possi...
... middle of paper ...
...velop plans and goals that they can put into action. I further believe warmth and empathy should be used in building relationships between clients. The therapist should create a setting in which clients feel safe and can be vulnerable and spontaneous. As I stated before when discussing goals, it is the role of the therapist to cultivate optimism and hope. According to Gehart (2010), hope should be instilled early on in therapy to foster motivation and a sense of momentum (p. 337). I agree with this statement because more than likely the client is in therapy to make some kind of change, to make an improvement. If hope is instilled early in treatment, clients are able to feel empowered and strengthened by their therapist’s encouraging attitude. Overall, a therapist should be a facilitator, a resource person, an observer and a model for effective communication.
Looking at recent publications, one has the impression that family therapy is a new concoction from the psychotherapist's alchemic kitchen. It is met with diverse reactions. Some regard it suspiciously, seeing it as a deviation from traditional therapeutic methods; others praise it as an important advance in the treatment of psychoses. Still others view it as a special method for dealing with children.
Strategic Therapy was inspired by Gregory Bateson and Milton Erickson In the 1950s, Gregory Bateson’s research on communication at Palo Alto was the accidental discovery of strategic therapy.
Conflicts within relationships are inevitable and some conflict can help strengthen a relationship; however, in marriages and families, many people fail to work through their conflict, which results in unhealthy patterns of behavior. Over time, if left unresolved, these patterns of behavior can lead to a breaking of the relationship. Furthermore, most people do not set out seeking conflict within relationships, but rather they lack the emotional maturity to move through conflict. In fact, it is not the differences between the two parties that create the conflict, but rather the emotional reaction to their differences. Therefore, an intervention is required to begin the healing process of working through conflict. Often a pastor or counselor
Rosa and Miguel are experiencing relationship problems due to developmental and financial stressors. This has created a turbulent home environment. Miguel’s verbal abuse and open hostility has Rosa emotionally overwhelmed. He is not physically abusive; however, his anger is upsetting the household. The children are also displaying emotional and physical stress related symptoms. Rosa and Miguel come from emotionally unstable homes, which has impacted their ability to communicate and manage their emotions. Due their inability to communicate in a productive manner, they have sought help to resolve their problems. Both have expressed the concern that they are repeating the harmful behavior they experienced as children. They
Cloe Madanes once said psychotherapy is the art of finding the angel of hope in the midst of terror, despair and madness.
People with depression often experience interpersonal problems. Family therapy for depression is a widely used intervention, but it is unclear whether this is an effective therapy for the treatment of depression.
In the industrial age before World War II, when individual psychotherapy was born and thrived, human beings were essentially seen as machines, with broken parts—including the mind—that could be repaired; after World War II, the dawning information technology age brought a paradigm shift in the view of human life from mechanical to relational, and communication and systems theories provided family therapy with increased validity and prominence. (White, 2009, pp. 200-201). The modern family systems theories that grew out of this paradigm viewed families narrowly as functional or dysfunctional according to the delineation of each theory. Today, postmodern theory suggests that no absolute truth governs individuals or families; instead, people are
Divorce is and has become a major issue in our society, the reason for that has been attributed to the drastic increase in divorce rates over the years. Divorce often disrupts the flow of the family structure, increases discord, and affects how family issues are handled. Families dealing with divorce are often times in a state of complete confusion and disorder, and filled with frustration, anger, and pain. Power struggles between spouses, which often times spread to the children if there any increase as the addiction worsens. There is a growing concernment among those in different fields like Social Work, Academia, and Mental Health in the United States, other countries, who have taken an interest in how divorce is readjusting
The initial intake when conducting family therapy is key in gathering information to assist the family in the therapeutic process. The therapist must be skilled in active listening, observing communication patterns, and understanding nonverbal communication. As we learned in our reading, families come in with patterns of behaviors developed to manage family problems (Metcalf, 2011). Therefore, our job is to identify the concerns of all the family members.
Growing up, two group of people, parents, and grandparents, took the time and the energy to raise me. Both of them had different approaches when raising me. These approaches were different parenting styles. According to Baumrind, parenting style was the “[capturing] normal variations in parents’ attempts to control and socialize their children” (Darling, 1999). To put it simply, parenting style goal was to lecture, influence, and discipline a child. In general, there are four parenting styles with their own specific benefits and disadvantages. Furthermore, parenting style, granted the dynamic of the family was understood, can be identified in families.
6. Assist client with looking at alternatives and setting goals that are important to him or her. Mutual goal setting ensures that goals are attainable and helps to restore a cognitive-temporal sense of hope (Johnson, Dahlen, Roberts, 1997). Clients who do not know what to hope for are without hope. Thus an integral part of developing hope is determining and setting goals. The significance of the goal to the individual is complex and critical to sustaining hope (Morse, Doberneck, 1995).
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
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.
During Diana Baumrind’s research as a developmental psychologist, she concluded that parents fall under three different styles of parenting: Authoritarian, Permissive, and Authoritative. Baumrind’s styles were based on how one disciplines and nurtures their child (Cherry, n.d., p. 1). Authoritarian parents make discipline the highest priority when raising their children. They do not see any grey area about discipline (Belsky, 2013, p. 205). Rules, and enforcement of rules, are never left up to discussion. Whatever the parent says must go and the child is expected to fully comply. The standards they have set must be lived up to without any exceptions (Cherry, n.d., p. 1). Because the parents are not focused on the child’s emotional needs the parents are often viewed as not very warm and loving (Belsky, 2013, p.205). Permissive parenting is the antithesis of Authoritarian parents. Belsky (2013) stated that permissive parents do not lay down strict rules or discipline. There are not high expectations of how a child should behave or perform. The parents focus is not on rules or reprimanding, but on the child’s own wants and happiness. The parents’ main focus is on nurturing the child’s emotional needs (p.205). In the Authoritative parenting style there are definitely rules and ideas of how the child should behave, but the parents take a more diplomatic approach to parenting. Nothing is ever set in stone and parents negotiate freely with their children about the rules and repercussions. Unlike the Authoritarian style of parenting, these parents have a balance of “both nurturing” and discipline. Parents still have expectations about their children, but understand that they ...
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).