Introduction
Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.
1. What are your initial reactions after reading the intake interview? What are the themes that interest you the most in this case? Why?
From the intake interview, I can already see some budding problems in the Kline family besides Gary’s. Just by going through the interview, I can decipher that Gary’s problems and depression can be a symptom of a bigger problem in the family. One of the causes of Gary’s problem could be a lack of adequate father-son time due to his father’s busy schedule. The mother’s alcohol addiction could also be contributing towards Gary’s behavior. However, the mother’s problems could also have their roots in the family.
Another theme evident in this case is the dysfunctional patterns of communication that exist in the family. The family does not seem to have proper laid down ways of communicating and resort to blame games. George blames Gail for most of the family problems while singling out Jessie and Garry, and praising Jaimi. There is also an apparent feeling of inferiority portrayed by Gary, who does not feel good enough in his father’s eyes.
2. How would you proceed as a family therapist in an initial session if you saw the entire ...
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...believes that she has no part in problems. Jaimi can be convinced to participate by asking both parents to talks to her. Another major challenge is Gary’s apparent involuntariness. Gary seems to want to attend the sessions only because he has been instructed by the court. He sees family therapy and individual counselling as two evils, of which he has to choose one. Gary needs to willingly participate in the sessions for the therapy to bear fruit.
Conclusion
Family therapy is an important way of solving problems affecting family members. It demands the participation of the entire family in some of the sessions. Though working with the Kline family will present is set of challenges, the challenges are not unique and are part and parcel of counselling.
Works Cited
Corey, G. (2013). Theory and practice of counseling and psychotherapy (9th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth.
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
A systems based treatment plan is necessary when working with this family and a systemic assessment is needed to accomplish this. “A systemic assessment will typically reveal that marital and/or parenting issues are contributing to the presenting problem” (Gehart, p. 37, 2016). The therapist will start by using a genogram. A genogram was used to analyze the Andersen family, as it is a structured way of collecting information about the family. It allows the therapist to gather details and “identifies not only problematic intergenerational patterns, but also alternate ways for relating and handling problems” (Gehart, 2014, p. 237). A genogram is a visual representation of the family and their history that will display
Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th Ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Within a family system, individuals were seen as a product of the family unit, rather than exclusions of the unit; this eliminated compulsions and obsessions in a family unit (Taylor, Asmundson, & Jang, 2011). Within family system therapy, the goal is to be capable of eliminating abnormalities in functions that affect all individuals and to treat or respond to the entire family; the goal is to also focus on the identified family member, reducing their extreme stress (Carr, 2000). The family system therapy searches for the balance between the independent individual performance and the function of the group (Taylor, Asmundson, & Jang,
Today I received a referral from a family who is seeking help regarding their dysfunctional family structure. The Simpson’s are a nuclear family that is having difficulties living as a family. I have already spoken to Marge Simpson and agreed to find a way to get her husband and children to therapy. She has very high aspirations of attending therapy with her family because she has longed for a “normal” functioning family in which her husband and children interact in a much healthier manner than they do now. She described her husband of being careless, her son uncontrollable ate times, and her daughters disconnected from the family. We have set up the meeting for next week, Wednesday at six, when she believed her family would be more willing to attend and actually participate in the therapy session.
...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.
Gladding, S. T. (2011). Family Therapy: History, Theory, and Practice, Fifth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
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
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
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.
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.
The client stated that she came to therapy because she has been feeling really lonely and feeling as though that she is not enough since the death of her father. After the death of her father, her mother did not pay her any attention; she understood that her mother was grieving, especially when her grandfather passed a year later. I stated that the frequent death that surrounded her mother, seem to have caused her mother to distance herself from her. She responded “yes, and it even gotten worse when my mom started to date and eventually marry my stepfather”. She mentioned that once her little sister was born, she became jealous and envious. I emphasized with her by stating that she must have felt as though her little sister was going to take the attention that she sought from her mother. After confirming that her mother paid more attention to her sister and stepfather, she mentioned that during this time she began to cut herself in places that no one would notice. The pain did not take the feeling away, but she wanted to know that if she could still feel pain after the thought of losing everything. However, the only person who paid her any attention during this time, was her grandmother. Her grandmother showed her the love that her mother nor “father figure” never showed her. I stated, “the love that your grandmother showed was not the love you were
Assuredly though, Kevin’s family is supportive of him, and this is a valuable basis for an on-going alliance. Furthermore, the learned problem-solving and communication strategies equip each individual to navigate through potential future conflicts, reducing the need for repeat-therapy. Lastly, though it is unknown whether Kevin is medicated for his depressive disorder, young people have an improved outcome with a combined treatment approach of pharmacotherapy and either CBT or systemic family therapy (A. Hall, personal communication, 17 April 2014; March, 2006; The Werry Centre, 2010; Nayar, 2012). All safety and appropriateness considered, this approach would improve Kevin’s mood and ability to engage in therapy and as a consequence, also improve his other social relationships (Nayar, 2012).
Moreover, the foundational approach to structural family therapy are that families’ are views as psychosocial systems, attached within social systems, which operate in a transactional patters. The transaction patterns are how, when and whom to relate, and reinforce systems. As a result each family duty are carried ou...
Nichols, M. P. (2011). The essentials of family therapy. Boston, Ma.: Allyn and Bacon. (Original work published 5th)