Strategic - MRI Flashcards
What techniques are used in MRI BSFT?
- Joining - creating a therapeutic alliance with the family
- Tracking and diagnosing - learning more about the family’s behavior patterns and problems. This helps the therapist identify strengths and maladaptive patterns of interaction
- RESTRUCTURING
- Directives: The therapist provides direct instructions on what to change and how.
- Directive to make no changes (paradox)
- Covert change: subtle suggestions or indirect feedback to encourage change
- PRETEND techniques/reversals: The family is encouraged to act “as if”—or to imagine another set of circumstances to act differently than they normally would.
- Hypothesizing: The family is encouraged to ask the question “What would happen if…?”
- Circular questioning: The therapist asks the same question to multiple family members to illustrate various perspectives of the same issue or problem.
What are unique elements of MRI BSFT?
GOAL is BEHAVIOR CHANGE. All about the interaction!
- Long term change, insight, and the function of symptoms are not important – ONLY BEHAVIORAL CHANGE
ASSESSMENT -
- Takes cybernetics into account:
– Identify FEEDBACK LOOPS and DOUBLE BINDS, and the family rules governing them
- Gets definition of problem from each family member
- Looks at how structure of family may contribute, esp triangulations & cross-generational coalitions
- Considers the interpersonal payoff of problem behaviors
- Though emotions change and are important, are not directly available to the therapist. So, don’t need to examine internal psychodynamics to work on the problem.
INTERVENTIONS -
– POSITIVE FEEDBACK ESCALATIONS
– Paradoxical directives -
— Listing how to sabotage their life
— Symptom prescriptions: to continue or embellish problem behavior
– Therapist taking “one-down” position to avoid power struggles
– Changing family rules
TERMINATION -
- Therapy terminates when presenting problem is - either Ct or Therapist can determine this and decide
When is therapy terminated in MRI BSFT?
Therapy terminates when presenting problem is resolved. Either Ct or Therapist can determine this and decide to terminate.
What are the goals of MRI BSFT?
MRI BSFT has three major goals:
* to eliminate the presenting problem or to reduce it to where the behavior is no longer problematic for the family;
* to increase mastery and competence, where mastery is defined as the skill level family members need to competently manage family life; and
* to improve family functioning by correcting interactional patterns in ways that allow the family to reduce chronic negativity resulting from unresolved conflicts, increase the family members’ sense of belonging and cohesion,
and improve the family members’ ability to cooperate in parenting and other aspects of family life.
Ultimately, the goal of BSFT is to transform interactions from conflictive to collaborative, from anger to love, from negative to positive, and from habitual
to proactive. Families change because the love that is trapped behind the anger is allowed to flourish.
What is the goal of the treatment plan in MRI BSFT?
Changing maladaptive interactional patterns, improving behavior, and creating adaptive and successful methods of interaction
Who originated MRI Brief Strategic Family Therapy?
- John Weakland
- Don Jackson - worked w/Bateson (cybernetics) & Haley
- Paul Watzlawick
- Richard Fisch
Heavily influenced by Gregory Bateson’s cybernetics, and Erik Erikson’s hypnotherapy.
MRI BSFT also borrowed heavily from Salvador Minuchin’s Structural Therapy approach.
What are the key theoretical assumptions of MRI Brief Therapy (BSFT)?
ASSUMPTIONS -
- Relies heavily on a CYBERNETIC & SYSTEMS OUTLOOK: assumes that families are homeostatic and self-correcting. Thus, family problems are believed to exist when families continue to pursue solutions unsuccessfully (“more of the same”) and are corrected by therapists identifying, and then reversing, a family’s attempted solution(s) through SECOND ORDER CHANGE.
- People are always communicating, and symptoms are messages
- All messages have report and command (command - statement about relationship/interaction)
- Family rules are patterned command messages the family may not even be aware of
- Positive feedback loop is the centerpiece of the model
- Attempted solutions perpetuate problems (positive feedback loop & escalations)
- People resist change - homeostasis is natural
- Families are unique
- Families should be nimble and flexible when things are not working
What is the four-step process in MRI BSFT?
- Define the problem
- Identify the attempted solution: these perpetuate problems (positive feedback loop & escalations that create patterns)
- Describe the desired behavioral change - with concrete SMART goals
- Develop a plan. The target of the change is the attempted solution from Step 2; the tactic is to use the client’s own language to speak to client’s reality.
Who founded the Brief Therapy PROJECT at MRI?
Richard Fisch & Jay Haley integrated MIlton Erickson’s work at MRI with the Brief Therapy Project; Fisch was first director. Focus was hypnosis (from Erickson), and using words and indirect influence.
Who co-founded the Brief Therapy CENTER at MRI?
Paul Watzlawick, John Weakland & Richard Fisch
What are different types of “More of same” solutions?
“More of same” solutions perpetuate the problem.
- Terrible simplifications: action is necessary to solve the problem, but none is taken.
- Utopian syndrome: action is taken, but none was necessary
- Paradox: action taken, but at the wrong level (first order solutions are tried when second order solutions are needed, or v/v)
Does MRI SBFT concern itself with the functional nature of the problem?
No. Haley & Madanes Strategic Therapy is concerned with the function that symptoms/problems serve.
How long does MRI BSFT last?
MRI BSFT is a short-term model that typically consists of no more than 10 sessions.
