Family Therapy as a Psychological Intervention

When an individual or family results to therapy, there is often specific tensions and concerns that have to some degree remained unresolved (O'Gorman, 2012). Family Therapy serves as a psychological intervention to assist in resolving problems, addressing roles in the family, dealing with marital discord, separation and divorce, delinquency and any other family-related issues. Family therapy was first discovered about a decade after World War II, when psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, psychiatric social workers, marriage counselors, pastoral counselors not only wanted to just provide individual treatment but look into family relationships (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). In the past, problems were often dealt with by institutions, such as the church and hospitals. Several practitioner contributed to the family therapy. According to Goldenberg, Nathan Ackerman, John Bell, Don Jackson, Murray Bowen and Carl Whitaker were separately making contributions to family therapy and were unaware of each other’s efforts. Jay Haley, Virginia Satir, Lyman Wynne, Salvador Minuchin, Ivan Boszormenyi- Nagy, and James Framo also contributed to the development of family therapy and had very important roles (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013).
There are several types of family therapy that have different views on family; therefore, there are different approaches for helping families with their difficulties (Akar & Volten, 2013). There are many approaches in family therapy. Family systems theory is also known as, “The Bowen Theory”. Family systems theory is a theory discovered by psychiatrist, Murray Bowen, who believed families were systems. Murray believed that in order to understand an individual, you must understand the family system of t...

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...y have important common characteristics (Georgetown Family Center, 2013).
Societal Regression Societal regression refers to Bowen’s belief that “society responds emotionally in periods of stress and anxiety” (Goldenberg & Goldenberg, 2013). Murray suggested that offering short- term solutions, rather than seeking more rational solutions only made society digress more.
Conclusion
Murray Bowen developed the family systems theory to focus is on with how we relate to one another within our multigenerational family. Murray Bowen is one of the major theorist involved in the development of family therapy. Bowen theorized that present problems are related to issues in a person’s family of origin. His research has made an influence in understanding an individual’s issues from a different perspective.