Structural Family Therapy Flashcards
The fundamental belief of Structural Therapy
A belief in the basic competency of families. Families experience problems because they cannot access the structural change necessary to solve a specific problem.
It is the therapist’s job to convince the family to search for a solution that they already possess. All families possess the ability to change.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 66
The fundamental belief of Structural Therapy
A belief in the basic competency of families. Families experience problems because they cannot access the structural change necessary to solve a specific problem.
It is the therapist’s job to convince the family to search for a solution that they already possess. All families possess the ability to change.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 66
Holon
and therapy
a system that is both its own system and a subsystem of a larger system.
a family unit with disengaged boundaries will have what behavior with its community?
Isolation and a lack of connection with the world outside the family or for disengaged boundaries within the family, parents are unaware of their children’s lives in the community.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 69
Hierarchy
structural - a boundary that distinguishes leadership subsystem from the rest of the family.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 70
coalitions
Structural. two or more family members join forces against one or more family members.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 72
cross-generational coalitions
structural - when the weaker person in a familial power imbalance reaches to join with a member of another generation.
cross-generational coalitions do not resolve and often perpetuate problems.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 73
three types of cross-generational coalitions
1) adult to older adult
2) adult to child
3) detouring - focus shifts to child when anxiety in the couple relationship gets too intense.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 73
According to Minuchin, a sign of familial health is
a family’sability to change structures to meet the new demands of various life cycle stages of family crises.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 74
All families experience normal stress at these periods of time. And must be flexible to respond
to life cycle transitions. structural
Goals of structural family therapy.
shift to a more functional family structure.
alter family’s transactions
Family assessment for structural:
asking questions and observing how a family attempts to solve it’s problems. creating a structural map.
Structural Family Therapy Techniques
joining
accommodation
structural diagnosis - dysfunctional family
structure that maintains the issue.
restructuring - clinician takes charge of
therapy helps get un-trapped
Enactment -
boundary marking
unbalancing
enhancing family strengths
Heckler & Wetchler p. 84-86
structural therapists will track these four themes:
Boundaries
Hierarchy
Conflict Management
Complimentarity (balance creating effectiveness
which may or may not be symmetrical)
Volini p .150
In Structural Therapy the symptom that a identified patient has is viewed primarily as
a symptom of a dysfunctional family structure. If the family structure is modified the symptom will disappear.
The therapist detects a family’s structure by
tracking the interactional patterns of the family.
Minuchin defines family structure as
“the invisible set of functional demands that organizes the ways in which family members interact”.
MINUCHIN, S. and FISHMAN, H. C.: Family therapy techniques.
Harvard University Press, London, 1981. p.51
The symbols for a family map: affiliation between members coalition between members conflict clear boundary diffuse boundary rigid boundary
The symbols for a family map are the following: = affiliation between members } coalition between members conflict - - - - clear boundary …… diffuse boundary \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_rigid boundary
Increasing intensity is an intervention important to Structural Family Therapy. Increasing intensity has the effect of engaging the family in dealing with their issue.
Three ways of increasing intensity in Structural Family Therapy are:
1) increase duration of an avoided topic, increase duration of parents dealing with … while kids wait (for example)
2) Repeat message and repeat message
3) Increase isomorphic contact (if the father is to act like a father and the son - fill a role as a son/child, increase father’s directives to son, increase son’s permission asking, decrease attention to son in decision-making.)
4) resist as therapist - assimilation into the family dynamic - so that messages continue to address structural dysfunction (don’t rescue parents etc.)
5) shift position - use proximity
A structural map of the family keeps the goal in front of the therapist. Structural therapists will use these three interventions to shift family structure.
1) unbalancing
2) boundary marking
3) complementarity - considering every family member’s contribution to the symptom.
affective intensity
Structural - increase the emotional intensity of the system to increase structural change
Offering the family alternative perspectives and views on how the interact with one another.
Challenging the Family Assumptions (Structural)
Challenging the Symptom (structural)
offer the family an alternative way of perceiving the role of the symptom in relation to the family’s structure
clear boundary
especially between the parental subsystem and the children establishing the parents in leadership. Parents in parent roles/children in child roles
Coalitions
(structural) two family members join to create a coalition against one or several other family members
Complementarity
what is the purpose / when is it used and in which model
Used in Structural Therapy in increase intensity to promote change. Complementarity is the identification of each family member’s contribution to the problem.
Conflict management
(structural) The family’s capacity to resolve conflict and negotiate effective and balanced solutions
Enactments
SFT - Therapist has family members experiment with other ways of interaction
Enmeshed systems
diffuse boundaries - over involvement in each other’s lives.
SFT- a therapist can identify the hierarchy in the family by observing these three things:
1) interactional patterns
2) rules
3) boundaries
Intensity
sft - therapist increases intensity to promote change. this is done in several ways:
Increase the focus and time spent on a difficult subject
Increase emotion in situation
Repeat repeat repeat - message
Intervening
SFT insert themselves into the family system to disrupt or reinforce and step out again
The beginning stage of SFT involves
joining and accomodating.
Mimesis
the therapist’s intentional joining with the family and imitating speech and mannerisms and other observable behaviors.
Planning
sft - an assessment stage activity when the therapist hypothesizes about the family structure prior to working out the actual structure.
Differentiate between a sexual disorder and a sexual dysfunction.
A “disorder” is treated by a psychoanalyst.
A “dysfunction” requires a medical treatment
