Structural Family Therapy

Question 1

The fundamental belief of Structural Therapy

Answer 1

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

Question 2

The fundamental belief of Structural Therapy

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Holon

and therapy

Answer 3

a system that is both its own system and a subsystem of a larger system.

Question 4

a family unit with disengaged boundaries will have what behavior with its community?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Hierarchy

Answer 5

structural - a boundary that distinguishes leadership subsystem from the rest of the family.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 70

Question 6

coalitions

Answer 6

Structural. two or more family members join forces against one or more family members.
Heckler & Wetchler p. 72

Question 7

cross-generational coalitions

Answer 7

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

Question 8

three types of cross-generational coalitions

Answer 8

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

Question 9

According to Minuchin, a sign of familial health is

Answer 9

a family’sability to change structures to meet the new demands of various life cycle stages of family crises.

Heckler & Wetchler p. 74

Question 10

All families experience normal stress at these periods of time. And must be flexible to respond

Answer 10

to life cycle transitions. structural

Question 11

Goals of structural family therapy.

Answer 11

shift to a more functional family structure.

alter family’s transactions

Question 12

Family assessment for structural:

Answer 12

asking questions and observing how a family attempts to solve it’s problems. creating a structural map.

Question 13

Structural Family Therapy Techniques

Answer 13

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

Question 14

structural therapists will track these four themes:

Answer 14

Boundaries
Hierarchy
Conflict Management
Complimentarity (balance creating effectiveness
which may or may not be symmetrical)
Volini p .150

Question 15

In Structural Therapy the symptom that a identified patient has is viewed primarily as

Answer 15

a symptom of a dysfunctional family structure. If the family structure is modified the symptom will disappear.

Question 16

The therapist detects a family’s structure by

Answer 16

tracking the interactional patterns of the family.

Question 17

Minuchin defines family structure as

Answer 17

“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

Question 18

The symbols for a family map:
 affiliation between members
 coalition between members
 conflict
clear boundary
diffuse boundary
rigid boundary

Answer 18

The symbols for a family map are the following:
= affiliation between members
} coalition between members
 conflict 
- - - - clear boundary
 …… diffuse boundary 
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_rigid boundary

Question 19

Increasing intensity is an intervention important to Structural Family Therapy. Increasing intensity has the effect of engaging the family in dealing with their issue.

Answer 19

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

Question 20

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.

Answer 20

1) unbalancing
2) boundary marking
3) complementarity - considering every family member’s contribution to the symptom.

Question 21

affective intensity

Answer 21

Structural - increase the emotional intensity of the system to increase structural change

Question 22

Offering the family alternative perspectives and views on how the interact with one another.

Answer 22

Challenging the Family Assumptions (Structural)

Question 23

Challenging the Symptom (structural)

Answer 23

offer the family an alternative way of perceiving the role of the symptom in relation to the family’s structure

Question 24

clear boundary

Answer 24

especially between the parental subsystem and the children establishing the parents in leadership. Parents in parent roles/children in child roles

Question 25

Coalitions

Answer 25

(structural) two family members join to create a coalition against one or several other family members

Question 26

Complementarity

what is the purpose / when is it used and in which model

Answer 26

Used in Structural Therapy in increase intensity to promote change. Complementarity is the identification of each family member’s contribution to the problem.

Question 27

Conflict management

Answer 27

(structural) The family’s capacity to resolve conflict and negotiate effective and balanced solutions

Question 28

Enactments

Answer 28

SFT - Therapist has family members experiment with other ways of interaction

Question 29

Enmeshed systems

Answer 29

diffuse boundaries - over involvement in each other’s lives.

Question 30

SFT- a therapist can identify the hierarchy in the family by observing these three things:

Answer 30

1) interactional patterns
2) rules
3) boundaries

Question 31

Intensity

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Intervening

Answer 32

SFT insert themselves into the family system to disrupt or reinforce and step out again

Question 33

The beginning stage of SFT involves

Answer 33

joining and accomodating.

Question 34

Mimesis

Answer 34

the therapist’s intentional joining with the family and imitating speech and mannerisms and other observable behaviors.

Question 35

Planning

Answer 35

sft - an assessment stage activity when the therapist hypothesizes about the family structure prior to working out the actual structure.

Question 36

Differentiate between a sexual disorder and a sexual dysfunction.

Answer 36

A “disorder” is treated by a psychoanalyst.

A “dysfunction” requires a medical treatment