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Strengths and weaknesses of family system therapy
Foundations of family therapy
Foundations of family therapy
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Multigenerational/Bowen Family Therapy According to Monica McGoldrick, “A genogram should always be part of a more general process of joining, assessing and helping a family (McGoldrick, 1999).” Although I feel it really should depend of the presenting issues of the family, there is a great deal of merit to its use. Genograms allow for the “Tracking [of] critical events and changes on family functioning allows us to notice anniversary reactions,” or most importantly in Jared’s case “systemic connected between seeming coincidences…its resources and vulnerability to future stresses…” (McGoldrick, 1999). Simply making mental notes while Jared’s aunt was speaking, and eventually putting those notes to paper, both Kassi, his intake counselor and I, realized the issues surrounding Jared’s unbecoming behavior began five years ago. Five years ago can be interpreted as time full of change, difficult change, for Jared. It was around this time that his aunt had moved into the household and the torch that symbolized his parenting moved from his grandmother to his aunt. His aunt moved in because not only was her father sick, but her mother could no longer take care of her husband because she also became sick. She was …show more content…
I believe this intervention could help him come to terms with the life he leads now because he could view himself as being in “control of the problem and give [it] a precise definition (Payne, 2006).” In his case a term such as Sadness in the House could allow him to focus on problem, and not seeing himself as the issue as there were events that occurred outside his control. His reactions could be a problem, but he would not be the problem as it is understandable that he would react the way his has since this Sadness occurred. Notes about the sessions, particularly about Jared’s narratives as he sees theme would lead me to the intervention involving the use of therapeutic
For Bowen, the family is the unit of observation and the emphasis is put on emotional forces that are common to all families, this helps to reduce the significance of which family member is causing the problem. Bowens approach to change is understood within the context of striving to understand life’s forces, the very principal that gives coherence to Bowens approach to therapy. (Friedman, 1991). When attempting to achieve change within a client the source of the issue is less important, but rather trying to locate the systematic forces within a family as well as those that are transmitted from generation...
Mills, Terry L., Zenta Gomez-Smith and Jessica M. De Leon. "Skipped Generation Families: Sources of Psychological Distress Among Grandmothers of Grandchildren Who Live in Homes Where Neither Parent Is Present." Marriage & Family Review 37.1-2 (2005): 191-212. Web. 18 July 2014.
Mental health counselors must first assess the family’s problems. Assessment begins with a history of the presenting problem, which includes making notes of exact dates and checking them for their relationship to events in the extended family, becoming aware of the history of the family, including the history of the parents’ courtship, their marriage, and childrearing years (et, al., 2017, p77). The counselor must be aware of where the family has lived, the history of the spouse’s births, sibling positions, and significant parts of their childhood history, and the functionality of their parents, which should be recorded in a genogram covering at least 3 generations (et, al., 2017, p77). The mental health counselor also must always practice confidentiality, and cultural competence in dealing with
The therapist in The Legacy of Unresolved Loss used active interventions to help this family, and let them determine what their problems are instead of diagnosing the issue first off. The therapist first tried to place the issues in a broader context that include, extended family, community, gender, class and cultural background. (Mcgoldrick, The Legacy of Unresolved Loss) The therapist believes that “we are connected to all who came before and to all who will come after” (Mcgoldrick, The Legacy of Unresolved Loss). The therapist found out the majority of this information after she constructed a genogram during the first session of therapy. The genogram helped to support the individuals and their backgrounds, but it also was a useful tool
Assuming the importance of cognitive behavior therapy and Bowen’s family systems theory as two both distinct counseling techniques, and my desire to understand them better, I thought it useful to explore how they differ from each other and how they are similar. In this paper I will be describing the basic theoretic assumptions about the findings of human behavior in which CBT and the family systems theory rest and briefly look at how these assumptions guide the therapist in their approach to symptoms.
Randy Gerson, McGoldrick explains that a genogram is a starting point for a clinician, but the responsibility of the clinician is to delve deeper (via client interviews) in order to fill out the context of what his family genogram reveals. She says tracking certain patterns “can lead the clinician to hypotheses about the family’s adaptive style” (McGoldrick and Gerson). The therapist has a responsibility to use thorough questioning techniques in order to uncover as much about the family history as possible, as this information will likely reveal what the patterns are. These give all involved a map for how to deal with future crises. The authors state, “Seeing the family in its historical perspectives involves linking past, present, and future, and noting the family’s flexibility in adapting to changes” (McGoldrick and Gerson). Even so, it’s also McGoldrick’s assertion that every lead on a genogram cannot be followed, and so it is the clinician’s responsibility to spot and treat the most potentially harmful family patterns. Likewise, what’s “missing” is equally important; therefore, a therapist must note the connections clients and their families have failed to make, as teaching how to achieve these connections may cause the healing needed for individual differentiation (McGoldrick and
In our society families are the foundation of all human relationships. Therefore learning to maintain and develop healthy families are the goals of family therapist. Counselors can use the Structural Family Therapy approach in counseling hurting families. The pioneer of structural family therapy is Salvador Minuchin (Hammond & Nichols, 2014).
Families make us who we are. From our families we learn communication skills, emotions and how to form relationships. Murray Bowen developed the Bowen family systems theory. The Bowen family systems theory provides the opportunity to learn about complex family relationships and emotional relationships. The Bowen family systems theory can be integrated with religion and spirituality. Everyone can relate the Bowen family systems theory. I can integrate my personal experiences with concepts from the Bowen family systems theory.
Another way that I could also intervene is through family therapy. I believe that William’s family could also benefit from family therapy being that they are experiencing a stressful situation. William’s behavior has caused conflict between members of the family. Therefore, with using family therapy, the family could learn to establish healthy boundaries, improve functioning, change negative patterns of interaction, and build positive relationships (Alessi & Cullinan, 2017). Implementing family therapy would also help family members join to assist in bettering William’s behavior. Even though family therapy would be ideal, I believe that to incorporate the family each member of the family would need help in thinking and behaving more adaptively so that the family environment is more stable.
Structural Family Therapy offers a framework that provides order and meaning within the family connections (Nichols, 2013). Divorce for a family is considered a significant transition for all parties involved. When counseling a family going through divorce the structural family therapist’s job is to build an alliance with the family and obtain information about the structure. The structure of the family consists of the roles, interactions, organization, and hierarchy. Family therapy yields the belief that changing the organization of the family leads to change in the individual members. The structural family therapist often will try to become part of the family to gain a perspective of their issues as whole so not to place the focus on one individual. Joining is an empathetic approach in helping families explain and break down their individual stories without uncomfortable challenge or unnecessary confrontation (Nichols, 2013). It is important to note that family dysfunction that often leads to divorce is not attributed to one individual, but the entire family system. In structural family therapy, part of dealing with the issue of divorce in the family is to focus on the interactions between all the family members both positive and negative. Through these interactions the therapist can discover where the conflicts arise, which will in turn help the therapist understand how these negative interaction affect the family. Family therapy in these cases allows for repair of long-standing interactional patterns in which divorce is just one of a series of ongoing transactions that are disruptive to the child’s development (Kaplan, 1977, p.75). The structural family therapist often has the family play out these family interactions via enactments so that he can get a firsthand look at maladaptive patterns, roles, and
As stated before, his isolation and method of escapism ultimately leads to deleterious effects on his mind. Jared becomes more involved in his daydreams, even to the point where his daydreams grow to be an addiction. His mind is now consumed of thoughts about the airplane that he imaginatively visited with Lyndee, his classmate. For Jared, “the high of discovering the plane is no longer a high; it’s now his only means of escape” from his situation with his parents (Martin). The thoughts of the plane enthralls Jared, however they are now poisoning his psyche. It is something that he has been accustomed to, like the way his parents have been accustomed to drugs and alcohol. More importantly, for his last mission to the plane, Jared imaginatively informs Lyndee that it is too dangerous for her to go with him. He packs his tools together in his backpack and sets off to fix the plane. The narrator states, “More weight to carry, [Jared] thought, but at least he wouldn’t have to carry them back” (Rash 287). Readers can infer that Jared’s mindset is now full of misery and depressing thoughts. They realize that Jared will never come back to his home and is going to disappear into the snowy night forever. It is human nature for one to try and escape from reality when hardships happen. Everyone does it, however sometimes humans tend take escapism too far from reality. Like Jared, when this circumstance occurs, one’s mind is usually affected immensely. Moreover, the person is filled with numbness; their human behaviour is changing and everything they do seem to be robotic. The fantasy world in which they have created to escape reality becomes their whole life. All in all, taking a high dosage escapism can create pernicious ideas in one’s mind and lead to crucial
My theoretical approach to family therapy is very integrative as I believe families cannot be described nor treated from a single-school approach. I view humans through a humanistic and existential lens but am more technically structural and solution-based. With this integrative approach, I believe I will be the most effective in helping families grow and reach their goals.
Each member of my family have to feel like the therapist is working with them if not change will not occur. The use of family mapping will help distinguish the types of boundaries that exist among my family. With the disengagement within my family subsystems, using the enactment technique will illustrate the interaction among family members. I am close to the siblings that I grew up with and my father his siblings were very close. With that being said, I will like to see the dynamic between my aunts and uncles when they are all in the same room together after years of being apart. I chose structural family therapy because at the end of the therapy session, I want the restructuring of my family structure.
Each family unit exhibits concepts and themes found within Bowen’s Family System Theory. In my family unit, I see the following concepts and themes from a family system theory perspective exhibited through my genogram; boundaries, levels of differentiation, family projection process, and emotional cutoff. Each of these will be expanded on further below:
A family came in for therapy. There are five people in this family. There are two teenage girls, an 18-year-old male, and a mother and a father. Lately, one of the girls is no longer attending school, she is also withdrawing from friends. She has been disrespectful towards dad. She has been posting lewd pictures on social media, and there are people in the neighborhood telling the parents that they have seen one of their daughters drinking when with their friends.