MOVIE QUESTIONS ANALYSIS
Chapter 14
Family Systems Therapy
Copyright © 2021 Cengage
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The Family Systems Perspective
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Individuals are best understood through assessing the interactions between family members.
A family is an interactional unit.
Actions by an individual will influence all family members.
A systems orientation broadens the traditional emphasis on individual internal dynamics.
The Family Systems Perspective
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Symptoms are viewed as an expression of a dysfunction within a family.
Problematic behaviors:
Serve a purpose for the family
Are unintentionally maintained by family processes
Function of the family’s inability to operate productively
Symptom of dysfunctional patterns handed down across generations
Development of Family Systems Therapy
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Developed by Alfred Adler, Adolescent Focus Therapy is based on an educational model that emphasizes family atmosphere and family constellation.
Therapists are collaborators who seek to join the family.
Parent interviews yield hunches about the purposes underlying children’s misbehavior.
Development of Family Systems Therapy
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A theoretical and clinical model developed by Murray Bowen that evolved from psychoanalytic principles and practices.
The family is viewed as an emotional unit.
Unresolved emotional reactivity to one’s family must be addressed if one hopes to achieve a mature and unique personality.
Development of Family Systems Therapy
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Differentiation of the self
A psychological separation from others
Triangulation
A third party is recruited to reduce anxiety and stabilize a couples’ relationship.
Multigenerational Family Therapy Treatment Goals
To change the individuals within the context of the system
To end generation-to-generation transmission of problems by resolving emotional attachments
To lessen anxiety and relieve symptoms
To increase the individual member’s level of differentiation
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Structural-Strategic Family Therapy
Created by Salvador Minuchin, this approach focuses on family interactions to understand the structure, or organization of the family.
Symptoms are a byproduct of structural failings.
Structural changes must occur in a family before an individual’s symptoms can be reduced.
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Structural-Strategic Family Therapy
Reduce symptoms of dysfunction and bring about structural change by the following:
Modifying the family’s transactional rules
Bringing about structural change within the system by modifying rules
Establishing appropriate boundaries
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Strategic Family Therapy
Jay Haley developed this approach, which is often used in combination with Structural Family Therapy.
Jay and Minuchin shared similarities in goals and process.
The interventions generated became synonymous with a systems approach; they included joining, boundary setting, unbalancing, reframing, ordeals, paradoxical interventions, and enactments.
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Treatment Goals of Strategic Family Therapy
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Resolve
Resolve presenting problems by focusing on behavioral sequences.
Get
Get people to behave differently.
Shift
Shift the family organization so that the presenting problem is no longer functional.
Move
Move the family toward the appropriate stage of family development.
Recent Innovations in Family Therapy
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In recent times, feminism, multiculturalism, and postmodern social constructionism have all entered the family therapy field.
These models are more collaborative, treating clients—individuals, couples, or families—as experts in their own lives.
These models represent a real paradigm shift in the field of family therapy.
A Multilayered Process of Family Therapy
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Families are multilayered systems that both affect and are affected by the larger systems in which they are embedded.
Both members and the system can be assessed based on power, alignment, organization, structure, development, culture, and gender.
Forming a Relationship
The debate Carl Rogers (1980) first introduced individual therapy in the 1940s has reemerged within family therapy in the form of these questions:
What expertise does the therapist have in relation to the family, and how should that expertise be used?
How directive should therapists be in relation to families, and what does that say about the uses of power in therapy?
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Conducting an Assessment
Therapists often use genograms method for conducting an assessment, which enable the family structure in a clear manner.
Practitioners may use circular or relational questioning to get at the systemic issues presented in the family story that will provide meaning for the therapist and the family.
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Hypothesizing and Sharing Meaning
Following are two questions relevant to the form of hypothesizing one chooses to do:
(1) How much faith do the therapist and the family have in the ideas they generate?
(2) How much of an influence is the therapist willing to be in the lives of people and families?
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Hypothesizing and Sharing Meaning
Therapists cannot be in charge of the people, but they need to be in charge of the process.
Feminists and social constructionists are the most expressive of their concerns about the misuse of power in therapy.
They are joined by multiculturalists, person-centered therapists, Adlerians, and existentialists who have also witnessed the often imposition of “dominant culture” in therapy.
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Hypothesizing and Sharing Meaning
Dreikurs (1950, 1997) developed the process that is well designed for the kind of collaborative work.
He would use a passionate interest and curiosity to ask questions and gather together the subjective perspectives of family members.
He would honor the ideas that individuals brought to their joint understanding.
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Facilitating Change
Techniques are more important that see the therapists expert and in charge of making change happen.
Planning include what family therapy has called techniques or interventions, but with the family’s participation.
Possible outcomes is only limited by the resources available internally and externally to the family.
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Strengths From a Diversity Perspective
Many ethnic and cultural groups place great value on the extended family.
Monica McGoldrick has been the most influential leader in the development of gender and cultural perspectives and frameworks in family practice.
The individual culture of the family, the larger cultures to which the family members belong, and host culture that dominates the family’s life are explored.
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Shortcomings From a Diversity Perspective
The process of differentiation occurs in most cultures, but it takes on a different shape due to cultural norms.
Some practitioners may erroneously assume Western models of family are universal.
Some family therapists focus primarily on the nuclear family, which is based on Western notions.
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Contributions of Family Systems Approaches
In most systemic approaches, neither the individual nor the family is blamed for a particular dysfunction.
Identifying and exploring internal, developmental, and purposeful interactional patterns empowers the family.
An individual is not scapegoated as the “bad person” in the family.
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Limitations and Criticisms of Family Systems Approaches
An overemphasis on the system may result in the unique characteristics and needs of individuals being overlooked.
Practitioners must not assume that Western models of family are universal and must be culturally competent.
Therapists are finding ways to broaden their views of individuation, appropriate gender roles, family life cycles, and extended families.
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Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy - Chapter 14
Next weeks class- Independent- no need to sign onto Zoom
Directions
A link will be posed under announcements on Wednesday that you may access at 6:30pm.
Individual work should be e mailed to me no later than 4/28 at
11:59pm in order to receive credit.
Have a great week!!!
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Best-
Professor Petrie