Abstract
Family therapy is needed in so many aspects whether its trauma, substance, abuse or marital counseling. It doesn’t matter if it’s for adolescents in the family or adults. It’s important that a clinician is knowledgeable about family therapy and the best approaches to assist the family in becoming functional.
Keywords: Family therapy; adolescents; substance abuse
Introduction
The clinician interviewed is Sara Gavin, Director of Behavioral Health of CommuniCare Health Centers of Yolo County. They provide services in Davis, California; Woodland, California; and West Sacramento, California. CommuniCare Health Centers is a Federally Qualified Health and it has been providing health care since 1972. The goal of the program
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The behavioral health department (BHD) offers adult services, adolescent services, family services and Integrated behavioral health. BHD is staffed by over 50 employees and generally 5-7 student interns. To find out more about the center you can check out their website at: http://www.communicarehc.org/View_webpage.asp?Title=Home.
Interview
The clinician interviewed was Sara Gavin, Director of Behavioral Health. She is a Licensed Family Therapist (LMFT48348) and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC677). Ms. Gavin obtained her Masters of Mental Health Counseling from Boston College. She has been working with families for over ten years providing services to families struggling with substance abuse and training in trauma. Therapy is offered to clients/patients ages 4 and older. The Multicultural/population of clients/patients receiving services are as follows: 50% Hispanic/Latino; 28% Caucasian; 8% Asian; 4% African American/Black; 1% Native American, and 3% other. The services provided in Behavioral Health are adult substance treatment, Dual Diagnosis, Perinatal, Adolescence, Mental Health, Child Development Intervention program, Parenting/Family Counseling, Co-Parenting, HIV case management, Functional Family Therapy Evidence Based Model, Special Intervention for trauma focused,
Ms. Smith is a 30 year old single, Caucasian female referred for a psychosocial assessment by DOC Parole Officer Ward. She reports she was released from prison 2 months ago after a 3 year sentence for attempted escape due to not notifying her probation officer of her address change. Ms. Smith states due to her past substance use history and trauma experience her referral sources ordered counseling to address complex issues related to her emotional and physical well-being.
Gladding, S. T. (2010). Family therapy: History, theory, and practice (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson.
Family Therapy can be implemented in a different ways in a program that provides a facet of services, but it’s imperative that the approaches used are appropriate for the individual or families utilizing services. Functional Family Therapy is used to help deal with substance abuse in families but can also be used to assist with behavioral issues in children. A well rounded family service program can not only use this one approach but utilize other approaches to meet the needs of the population being served. And while implementing the service ethics will play a major role in the therapy being providing.
Family is something that plays a tremendous role in our life. Even though the structure of families has changed over the years, it is important to acknowledge that there many families out there whether they are traditional families, nuclear family, stepfamilies or others which tend to have different types of problems in their families. Therefore, many families attempt to go to family therapy in order for them to obtain help in solving the different types of issues they might have at home. As stated in the book Family Therapy by Michael P. Nichols (2013), “The power of family therapy derives from bringing parents and children together to transform their interaction… What keeps people stuck in their inability to see their own participation in the problems that plague them. With eyes fixed firmly on what recalcitrant others are doing, it’s hard for most people to see the patterns that bind them together. The family therapist’s job is to give them a wake-up call” (2013).
Drug and chemical abuse affect many families and that particular family that lives through a loved one who is an addict and the priority is to get help for the individual. In any intervention that involves drug addicts, a family's disposition is very important. Full recovery of any drug addict involves the restoration of the person's life as well as ensuring that those who are around the addict have the best ability when it comes to helping with abstinence which is a long-term goal. Abusers are often in denial or even believe that they are totally in control of their use of drugs
Family therapy is a form of psychotherapy employed to assist members of a family in improving communication systems, conflict resolution, and to help the family to deal with certain problems that manifest in the behavior of members. In most cases, deviance in a family member is an indication of underlying family dysfunctions. This paper looks the counselling procedure that can be applied to help the Kline family solve their problems. It answers certain questions including those of the expected challenges during therapy and ways of dealing with the challenges.
Marriage and family therapists believe that the family patterns may affect an individual’s psychological and physical well being and therefore need to be part of therapy. During a therapy session even if only one person is being interviewed, the therapists focuses on a set of relationships that the person is embedded in. The entire family is involved in solving clients problems regardless of whether the issue in individual or family.
My first assumption of family therapy was to involve the parents and the individual that had the problem. This book explored further what it
Substance abuse is an issue that continues to grow in America at an alarming rate. Families are an important factor for the onset of substance abuse as well as the sustainment of the addiction (Gruber & Taylor, 2006). The National Institute of Drug Abuse defines substance abuse as “A chronic disease characterized by drug seeking and use that is compulsive, or difficult to control, despite harmful consequences” (“Understanding Drug Use and Addiction,” 2016). In order to prevent relapse, success is found in the formation of familial and social relationships (Baharudin et al., 2014). Substance abuse is a major stressor in the family system and it not only impacts the family’s relationships with those outside of the family but
Family therapy is a technique that has many alternative approaches to every aspect of treatment which Nichols (2014), states may present a challenge when describing a basic technique. The two models of family therapy in which I feel that I would be most effective and comfortable with would be, experiential family therapy and solution-focused brief therapy. I feel most comfortable with these models because, I adapt to the role of the therapist of both therapies naturally. According to Nichols (2014), when families seek therapy they are stuck in a life-cycle transition, sometimes they are obvious and sometimes they are not obvious. I’ve found that during the first session an excellent question is to ask the client why now so that they can
The family is made up of five people: Claudia, the IP; Carolyn, mother; Laura, the sister; Don, the brother; and David, the father. The family is coming into therapy because there have been mounting concerns about Claudia and her behavior—acting out, staying out late, some fairly typical teenage stuff. For the purpose of this paper, I will be starting at the beginning where the family is first coming into therapy. I will first school that I will apply is Structural Family Therapy and the second school is Bowen Family Therapy.
In reading chapters four and five of the textbook “Substance Abuse and the Family” I found a couple of things that caught my interest. In chapter four, the middle phrase of an alcoholic family is discussed on page 58, regulatory behaviors of the family enabling whatever use of alcohol is occurring hiding and maintaining for others not to see the alcoholism. The children are usually pressured not to talk about the situation at school, work, etc. I have seen parents threaten their children if they were to tell, saying things like “ if you tell they will take us away from you forever and it will be your fault” or “ if you tell punishment will be sure to follow”. Therefore, the family must endure the negative impacts of an alcoholic parent falling
therapy aims to improve family relations, and the family is encouraged to become a type of
The evidence based intervention used at the Family First Program is called Seeking Safety. This intervention is used with clients with a history of trauma and/or substance abuse and teaches the clients coping skills ("SAMHSA," n. d.). Seeking Safety has five key elements: safety is the goal in relationships, thinking and emotions, it’s an integrated treatment that works on both PTSD and substance abuse, coping skills to deal with substance abuse and PTSD, there are four different content areas pertaining to cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal and case management, and helps clinicians with self-care and countertransference ("SAMHSA," n. d.).
Substance misuse in families tends to remain undetected, yet guesstimates predict that approximately 2-300,000 children under 16 within England and Wales have parents who misuse legal or illicit drugs, including prescription medication, alcohol or heroin (ACMD, 2003). Although each case is unique, involvement with substances raises concerns when at medical, legal and socially unaccepted levels because of the possibility of an adverse effect upon a parent’s capacity to respond to their children’s needs (). In addition, parental substance usage during any stage of a child’s growth often negatively impacts development, for instance women consuming alcohol during pregnancy can have babies born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome which results in them having additional behavioural and learning needs (CDC, 2015). In turn, substance misuse exemplifies the risk of harm from abuse or neglect, as well as poorer short and long-term outcomes. For example, children denied a stable and loving environment because a parent using substances is physically and emotionally unavailable, are more likely to develop spiralling