Strategic Family Therapy Model

Andrew and Rebecca are a couple who has decided to seek counsel after separating and is now facing divorce, after 5 years of marriage. Andrew and his wife, Rebecca have a two-year old son, Noah, and Noah has been recently diagnosed with asthma. Over the past two years, Andrew has become an increasingly distant and withdrawn husband and an emotionally unavailable father. For Andrew and Rebecca, I will be using the Strategic Family Therapy Model. This therapy model will also include a treatment plan that consist of early, middle, and late phase goals. This treatment plan addresses why I chose the Strategic Family Therapy Model, a comparison between theory-based and symptom-based treatment plans and the benefits to using a theory-based treatment plan.
Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes were influential in developing the Strategic approach. They later included Gregory Bateson, Milton Erickson, and Salvador Minuchin which created the MRI group (Gehart & Tuttle, 2003, p.44). Haley and Madanes developed the strategic approach as a brief therapy model that focuses on the context and functioning of a client’s symptoms and used directives to instruct clients to behave in ways that were contrary to their symptomatic behavior (Nichols, 2014, p.98). Haley (2014) believed it was best to have clients actively do something about their

Also, theory-based models relate specifically to the identified problem. With this, therapists can give consistent and coherent interventions with initial to final stage plans. Theory-based treatment plans are also more relevant and this exceptionally important when working with couples and families. It addresses complex and relational dynamics not fully captured in a symptom-based treatment plan