STP Concepts

Question 1

3 Essential Components of Structural Family Therapy

Answer 1

structure, subsystems, and boundaries

Question 2

Accommodation

Answer 2

Elements of a system automatically adjust to coordinate their functioning.

People may have to work at it.

Question 3

Boundaries

Answer 3

Invisible barriers that regulate contact with others

Question 4

Boundary Making

Answer 4

Negotiating the boundaries between members of a relation and between the relationship and the outside world

Question 5

Clear Boundaries

Answer 5

Supports a hierarchical structure in which parents occupy a position of leadership. Enables children to interact with their parents, but excludes them from the spouse subsystem.

Question 6

Coalition

Answer 6

An alliance between two people or social units against a third

Question 7

Cross-Generational Coalition

Answer 7

An inappropriate alliance between parent and child, who side together against a third member of the family

Question 8

Disengaged subsystems

Answer 8

are independent but isolated. Fosters autonomy but limits affection and support

Question 9

Disengagement

Answer 9

Term of psychological isolation that results from overly rigid boundaries around/between individuals and subsystems in families

Question 10

Enactment

Answer 10

INteraction stimulated in STF to observe and then change transactions that makeup family structure

Question 11

Enmeshed subsystems

Answer 11

Offer closeness and support but at the expense of independent competence. Enmeshed children often become dependent on their parents

Question 12

goal of structural family therapy

Answer 12

to alter family structure so that the family can solve problems

Question 13

enmeshment

Answer 13

term for loss of autonomy due to a blurring of psychological boundaries

Question 14

family structure

Answer 14

the functional organization of families that determines how family members interact

Question 15

hierarchical structure

Answer 15

Family functioning bases on clear generational boundaries, where the parent’s maintain control and authority

Question 16

How is family structure reinforced?

Answer 16

Buy the expectations that establish rules in a family

Question 17

Intensity

Answer 17

Term for changing maladaptive transactions by using strong affect, repeated intervention, or prolonged pressure

Question 18

Interpersonal boundaries

Answer 18

Vary from rigid to diffuse

Question 19

Joining

Answer 19

Attempting and accommodating to famlies to win their confidence and circumvent resistance

Question 20

Key figure

Answer 20

Salvador Minuchin

Question 21

“Normal Family”

Answer 21

Has functional structure that is flexible to changing family needs, such as when family is faced with external pressures ( job loss) or developmental transitions (new child). Healthy families accommodate to the changed circumstances.

Question 22

Problem Behaviors

Answer 22

Results when a family’s structure does not accommodate to changed circumstances, but instead becomes MORE RIGID

Question 23

Reframing

Answer 23

Relabeling a family’s descriptions of behavior to make it more amenable to therapeutic change

Question 24

Rigid Boundaries

Answer 24

Restrictive and permit little contact with outside subsystems. Results in disengagement

Question 25

SFT JESHBUCTechniques

Answer 25

1. Joining and accommodating
2. Engagements
3. Structural Mapping
4. Highlight and modifying interactions
5. Boundary making
6. Unbalancing
7. Challenging unproductive assumptions

Question 26

SFT Therapeutic Techniques

Answer 26

Joining and accommodating, enactments, structural mapping, highlighting and modifying interactions, boundary making, unbalancing, challenging unproductive assumptions

Question 27

Shaping Competence

Answer 27

Reinforcing positives rather than confronting deficiencies

Question 28

Structural Assessment is based on -

Answer 28

The assumption that a family’s difficulties often reflect problems in the way the family is organized. It is assumed that if the organization shifts, the problem will shift.

Question 29

Structural requirements for couples joining a relationship

Answer 29

Joining, accommodating, and restructuring

Joining gets therapist into the family, accommodating to their styles gives therapist leverage, restructuring maneuvers transform the family structure

Question 30

Structural requirements for couples joining a relationship

Answer 30

Accommodation and boundary-making

Question 31

Structure

Answer 31

Refers to the way a family is organized into subsystems and how the interactions among those subsystems are regulated by boundaries

Recurrent patterns of interactions that define and stabilize the shape of relationships

Question 32

Subsystems

Answer 32

Smaller unit of families, determined by generation, sex or function

Question 33

Symbols of Family Structure

Answer 33

Rigid boundary, clear boundary, diffuse boundary, coalition, conflict, detouring, and over involvement

Question 34

Structural Minuchin Detouring

Answer 34

When the parents focus on a child either by overprotecting or blaming (“scapegoating”) the child for the family’s problems.

Question 35

Structural Minuchin Stable Coalition

Answer 35

Parent and child form a cross-generational coalition and consistently “gang up” against the other parent

Question 36

Structural Minuchin Triangulation/Unstable Coalition

Answer 36

Each parent demands that the child side with him/her against the other parent. The child is being pulled in 2 directions

Question 37

Detouring

Answer 37

The rerouting of interparental conflict through the child to avoid interparental conflict

Question 38

Detour Attacking Triad

Answer 38

The parents express joint anger at the child and this is associated with conduct problems

Question 39

Detour Protecting triad

Answer 39

Parents express joint concern about the child, who may present with a psychosomatic complaint.